“Let me get up and get cleaned up a bit,” he said, awkwardly shifting to the other side of the bed and shuffling off to the bathroom.
Cynthia knew this meant he wasn’t interested. She threw on a big, soft beige sweater over a pair of leggings and went downstairs to make herself some coffee. Glen was never in the mood to do anything. Except work. His obsession with her father’s firm made her sometimes question if that’s why he married her. A life with someone would be a lot to invest for a job, but if someone were capable of it, it was Glen.
Cynthia looked out the window at the house across the street. It had been vacant for a while now. The guy who used to live there died after his wife left and took the kids. He was a nice guy, and the sadness of his death was intensified by the fact that no one noticed he had stopped coming and going for three weeks. Everyone on the block acted like they were a close knit, caring community. But in the aftermath of his upheaval, in his most urgent time of need, no one had bothered to check in on him for over three weeks. Eventually his ex-wife came over after he no-showed at court and found him lying on the media room floor with a steak knife lodged in his jugular. He was eating dinner in front of the TV when he got up for something and tripped. He was also packed full of painkillers.
That was maybe six months ago. Today, the interior lights were on and a moving van was parked in front of the driveway. Cynthia picked up the phone to call her mom. No one loved neighborhood gossip more than Nancy Holland.
“Hello dear,” Nancy answered the phone in her usual manner.
“Mom, someone’s moving in. At the dead guy’s house.”
“Cynthia! That’s so insensitive,” her mother scolded.
“Whatever. You know what I mean. People are moving in.”
“What do they look like? A family? Let’s go for a walk and check it out.”
“Mom it’s December, a walk isn’t casual, it’d be obvious we were spying.”
“Oh, you’re no fun. Let me know when you see them. We should bring something over; welcome them to the neighborhood. I’ll have Roberta whip something up.”
“Okay, yeah, I’ll let you know. Bye, Mom.”
“Bye, honey.
It was kind of a bummer that her only friend in the neighborhood was her mom. She had the fleeting thought to call Coop. He would want to make up a crazy story with her about the new neighbors being spies or assassins. Maybe even celebrities. She couldn’t stop thinking about him since last night’s dream.
Maybe she could call Ryan, he would definitely have something to say. But she needed to keep her distance form Ryan. He had suspected something. He was the one who knew something was wrong after she and Coop parted ways and she went to law school. He would call, show up on announced, and pry. She felt terrible, but she had no choice but to keep him at arm’s length.
A black Mercedes SUV was slowly working its way up the snowy street. As it got closer, Cynthia saw it was packed so full that the three passengers barely had enough room for themselves. It came to a stop in front of the house. A man in his mid to late forties got out first, followed by a woman around the same age. Both were tall, blonde, and layered in what looked like was everything they owned. The woman leaned into the backseat of the car and, after some maneuvering, helped a child out of a car seat and onto the road. The little girl was so bundled up that Cynthia could only see her long, thick dark hair sticking out from under her winter hat. The girl paid no attention to the slippery surface of ice and snow that covered the street and front lawn of her new home. She sprinted excitedly toward the front door. Cynthia smiled. She would have done the same thing.
The parents stayed outside to unpack the car. Out of the corner of her eye, Cynthia saw a couple walking down the street in the direction of the new neighbors. She quickly recognized her mother, holding the flowers from the centerpiece last night. The Holland’s housekeeper Roberta was in tow, her hands loaded with pans and packages that could only be leftovers from last night’s dinner. Cynthia laughed. Nancy certainly didn’t waste any time.
Cynthia pulled on a coat and stepped into a pair of LL Bean boots by the door. If her mother had already broken the ice she might join in on the investigating.
She crossed the street just as her mother was greeting the new neighbors.
“You’re going to love it here; it’s such a great community,” Nancy was saying as Cynthia got within earshot. Seeing Cynthia, Nancy reached for her and pulled her into a side hug.
“This is my daughter, Cynthia. She loved it so much she bought the house right across the street!” Nancy laughed.
Cynthia squirmed out of the hug and extended her hand to the neighbors.
“Hi, I’m Cynthia Dowd. Welcome to the neighborhood,” she took a random pan from Roberta and held it out to them.
“I made this for you.”
“Well bless your hearts, the both of you! How nice!” The woman’s southern drawl dripped through the cold air. Southerners. Suddenly their excessive layering and lack of winter coats made sense.
“I’m Laura, but you can call me Bunny. And this is my husband, Clive,” she gestured towards the man next to her.
“Pleased to meet ya,” Clive said in his own sweet Southern twang.
“Not used to these Northeast winters, huh?” Cynthia offered.
“Oh no dear, not in the slightest! We have some shopping to do, ain’t that right, Clive?”
“Certainly is, but then again, don’t you always have some shopping to do, Bunny?”
“Oh you stop that, Clive! Not in front of our new friends!” Bunny laughed, and slapped her husband’s arm.
“Now, am I mistaken or did I see an adorable little girl with you earlier?” Nancy asked, looking around.
“Yes, that’s our Tara,” Bunny replied.
“Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!” A high little voice rang out. The little girl Cynthia had seen earlier shot from the house. Her hat was knocked askew.
“I found my room, Mommy, it’s pink! It’s pink just like you said it was!” Her excited shouts were a miniature version of her parents’ Southern accents.
Clive reached down and scooped her up, surprisingly nimble for a man his age.
“Great find, Tara, but your mom and I were just talking, and I think I want that room, is that okay with you?”
“Daddy no! Daddy, it’s pink. And pink is for girls,” she said, matter of factly.
“That’s right, pink is for Daddy’s little princess. The room is all yours. Tara, say hello to our new friends, Mrs. Holland and Mrs. Dowd,” he shifted Tara in his arms so she could see Cynthia and Nancy. Tara brushed her dark hair out of her eyes and looked directly at Cynthia.
“And how old are you, my darling?” Nancy asked, reaching over to fix the child’s hat more snuggly on her head.
“Six,” Tara replied, holding up that many fingers.
“Wow, very good! A smart little girl, just like her parents, I’m sure. Isn’t that right, Cynthia?”
Cynthia searched for something to say, but she physically couldn’t get the words out. She was captivated by Tara’s gorgeous, deep, sparkling green eyes. They seemed so familiar. It was like looking into another pair of green eyes that she knew all too well. Coop’s.
“Cynthia?” Nancy repeated, but Cynthia only offered another stretch of silence as she noticed the beautiful brown silkiness of Tara’s hair. Such a rare combination, green eyes and brown hair.
“I’m sorry,” she finally managed, “I’m not feeling well.”
In a daze, Cynthia stumbled for a couple steps backwards before turning and cutting across the lawn in the general direction of her house.
“She’s come down with something, started last night, I think,” Nancy explained to Clive and Bunny as Cynthia made her way home.
That was odd, Cynthia thought. She could have sworn that those green eyes were Coop’s. Except… it wasn’t possible. Thinking about it logically, Cynthia arrived at the obvious conclusion; she was imagining things. Her exchange with Coop a
nd the digging into the box she had done the other night was getting to her. She was simply seeing a child similar in age and coloring that hers would have been and letting her imagination get the better of her. Wasn’t she?
At home, Cynthia dropped her coat on the rug in the entryway and paced up and down the hall. She heard Glen moving around upstairs. She had to do something. This was getting too big to carry herself; she was full on hallucinating now.
She decided she would talk to Glen. Tell him everything. See what he thought. He was rational. He could help. She took a few quick steps in the direction of the stairs and stopped in her tracks, pulling her hair at her scalp. What was she thinking? There was no way she could confide in Glen like that. He would… well, he wouldn’t completely lose it on her, because that wasn’t Glen. He would probably do what he did whenever they had to deal with something. He would shut down. He would say nothing and never mention it again. She couldn’t have him pulling further away from her than he already was, what would that do for their marriage?
Coop flashed into her mind. But that was a rabbit hole she didn’t want to fall into. Who do people tell these things to? Her only friends were work colleagues. She’d lost touch with everyone from college and had kept her distance from everyone in law school because of her pregnancy. Anyone she still occasionally talked to from high school was no one she wanted knowing this. That was the drawback to living in the town where you grew up. News like this would travel like wildfire.
With no other choice left, Cynthia took a deep breath, picked up her coat, and walked to her mom’s house.
Cynthia avoided looking in the direction of Clive and Bunny’s as she crossed the street. She pushed open the heavy door of her mother’s house and called inside.
“Mom?”
“Cynthia? We’re in here, honey!” Her mom called from the kitchen.
“Good for you!” Nancy said, continuing the conversation Cynthia’s entrance had briefly interrupted, “I was done with my baby making by thirty-five. There was no way I could have done a pregnancy in my forties.”
“Oh, honey,” Cynthia recognized Bunny’s drawl instantly, “between you and me, I’m dryer than a dessert in a drought. Couldn’t carry one if I tried. And believe me, did we try,” she laughed, “she’s adopted. Some poor girl did all that work and then gave her right to me.” The women cackled together.
Cynthia froze in the living room. A dark haze closed in on her and she desperately stretched for the support of an armchair, which was just out of reach, as she felt herself fall.
Chapter 3: Odessa, Texas
Cynthia sat in the waiting room examining the poorly illustrated PSA posters on the walls and thought about how ridiculous it was that she was here. After she fainted in her mother’s house three days ago, Nancy had insisted that a professional examine her. Cynthia can still hear the ringing of “Bless her heart!” that she had woken up to.
Every moment since Cynthia found out that Clive and Bunny adopted their daughter had been torture for her. When she did sleep, which was rare, she was violently awoken by nightmares and flashbacks of giving birth and signing her child away.
One night, while Glen was out at a work dinner, she drank a few glasses of red to get herself to sleep. She barely remembered it the next morning, but she had picked up the phone and called Coop’s number. It was 2:00am and he hadn’t picked up, but she left a voicemail. She had no idea what she said, but she knew it couldn’t have been good. Her mother was right; there was definitely something wrong with her, but this doctor’s visit wasn’t going to help.
Cynthia shifted in her faux leather seat and looked around the room at the others waiting to be seen by the doctor. An elderly couple sat across from her. The woman had fluffy white hair and wore a white dress shirt with navy slacks. She was engrossed in a book while her husband, dressed down in jeans and a short-sleeved flannel top snoozed in the chair beside her. She looked wise and kind. Cynthia wondered if she would listen to her. Maybe she would know what to do. Maybe she, too, had watched another woman raise her child.
“Dowd?” A pretty blonde nurse in bright blue scrubs emerged from the inner maze of the office. She was young, probably around the age Cynthia was when she had her baby. Her eyes looked kind. A moment of silence followed.
“Oh, yeah, Cynthia? That’s me,” She wondered if there would ever be a day when she would actually answer to Glen’s last name.
“Cynthia, you haven’t been in here in a while, have you?” The nurse asked, flipping through the pages of her chart.
“No,” Cynthia replied, in a tone that was more dismissive than she had meant.
“Ok, no problem. Right in here,” she stretched a hand in the direction of an open exam room. Cynthia sat down on the exam table. The paper crinkled under her.
“Let’s get some background here if that’s okay with you? Do you know what you weigh?”
“128.”
“Last period?” The question hung in the air for a moment.
“I had a baby,” Cynthia blurted, staring at the floor.
“Oh, wow, you look great girl, okay—I didn’t see that in your records—when did you—”
“Six years ago.”
“Ok, I um, let me, like, get—”
“No,” Cynthia looked up from the floor and put a hand up to stop the nurse from getting up. “No, please, I had a baby. Caroline. Well, they named her Tara, didn’t they? I gave her up. I had to I couldn’t have kept her my mom would have…”
She paused for a moment. What would her mom have done? All the obvious conclusions she had drawn when she was pregnant six years ago suddenly seemed… more flexible. Back then, she was so sure that her parents would disown her, kick her out of the house, cut her off, stop paying her law school tuition, and she would literally end up dying of shame. But thinking about it now, what’s the worst that could have happened? Her parents always valued her education over everything else. They would have encouraged her to make school work. And despite how much she and Ryan complained about them, the truth was, Nancy and Smith loved and supported them through anything they had ever done. Hell, Ryan had a DUI and their parents not only bailed him out and paid his legal fees, but they also sued the bar he had been drinking at for over serving him.
“I didn’t think… You know, now that I say it out loud… I guess I just didn’t think I could,” her eyes filled with tears, “and now, I mean, I… I want her. I want her and her father. But they’re all so happy. Everyone’s so happy, but me.”
The nurse stared at her, not saying anything. Tears started to leak from her eyes.
“I just, can you let me get the doctor?” She said, gasping between sobs, “it’s my first day and I don’t think I’m, like, prepared for this kind of thing?” She put a hand over her heart, her chest heaving.
“It’s okay,” Cynthia said, suddenly calm, “I think I’ll just go. I should go.”
Cynthia stood up and walked out. In a daze, she noticed how beautiful of a day it was. The sun was shining brighter than it had been when she walked into the office. She got into her black Land Rover and ran her hands across the leather steering wheel. What a beautiful car. She remembered the day that she and Glen traded in her Volkswagen Jetta for it. There was nothing wrong with her Jetta. In fact, it was running perfectly. It couldn’t have been more than half way through its lifespan. But Glen convinced her a luxury SUV was what they needed. And it was great; it was more comfortable and ran better than her Jetta. At the time, she couldn’t articulate the reason she didn’t want it.
Now, though, it was clear. She wasn’t a soccer mom. She wasn’t a Stepford Wife. So much of her life over the last few years, in the wake of giving up her baby, had been established while she was running on autopilot. She met the man her parents set her up with and married him. She bought a beautiful house in a nice neighborhood. She traded in her faithful green Jetta for a Land Rover. What a beautiful car for someone to have, she thought, but not for her. None of this was for her.
Cynthia started the car and drove to her mother’s. She thought she would be nervous, but after all this time she was just excited it was going to be over. She couldn’t wait to tell her everything. No more holding back and hiding, no more lying, and most importantly, no more having to deal with this all this by herself.
Cynthia slammed her car into park in the driveway before she had come to a complete stop. She marched up the paved walkway and threw the front door open.
“Mom!” She called into the house.
“What!” Nancy yelled back, startled. She was sitting on an oversized armchair next to the door. She was reading a hard cover book while covered in a blanket.
“I’m right here. Don’t give me a heart attack, you know, I’m not as young as I used to be.”
“I had a baby, Mom.”
“Honey, what? You had a miscarriage?”
“No, no, Mom I had a baby. In law school.” A long silence followed.
“Roberta?” Nancy finally spoke, folding a bookmark into her book and taking off her reading glasses, “can you bring out some tea?”
“Okay,” her mother continued, “come here.”
Nancy pushed over to one side of her armchair and patted the seat. Cynthia slid in beside her. Nancy put an arm around her daughter and threw the blanket over both of them.
“You know, something wasn’t right. We could feel it. You really pulled away that year. Your father and I could tell. We didn’t know why, we figured it was the pressures of school or something, and we didn’t know how to ask, how to approach you,” she closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead.
“Cynthia, my baby, what happened?”
She told her mom everything. The pregnancy, how she wrote papers for other students on top of her own school work to pay for her expenses, the loneliness and panic of the delivery room, and finally, the adoption.
“Cynthia, I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you. I can’t believe you had to go through all that alone. It must have been… so many things. Terrifying for one. Lonely definitely. No one to share the ups and downs with. I’m just so, so sorry.”
Romance: The Bad Boy Affair: A Second Chance Romance Page 3
