by White, Karen
The rain tapped against the tin roof as he pressed his lips gently against her temple, his long fingers stroking her hair. She let herself drift off to sleep then, and she dreamt of being on a raft in an ocean of stars, drawing nearer and nearer to the one that shone the brightest.
Something tugged on her hair and she stirred awake, staring into the sweet face of her baby son. Pulling herself up to a sitting position, she looked past Ford to see Linc in jeans and with a bare chest reclining on the bed, watching her. She was startled to see it was full morning, the sun bright and sparkling off the remaining raindrops on the window.
“I didn’t hear him cry—was he fussing?” She lifted the baby, settling him in the crook of her arm, unbuttoning her nightgown and preparing to nurse him.
“No, just talking to himself. But I thought he might be hungry.”
She smiled self-consciously, remembering their night together. They had made love two more times, leaving her sore and exhausted but completely sated. “He slept through the night, then. He hasn’t done that before.”
“I guess he figured you were otherwise occupied.”
Linc’s eyes glittered with amusement, and Jillian looked away again, feeling her cheeks heat. She settled Ford on her breast and waited until he was suckling contentedly before looking back at Linc.
His face was serious now as he focused on the nursing baby. His eyes met hers. “You have no idea how beautiful you look right now.” Slowly, he reached out a finger and touched the baby’s cheek, then gently stroked the top of her breast before lifting her chin to face him. “This whole motherhood thing—it suits you.”
She dropped her gaze back to her son, not wanting Linc to see the moisture in her eyes. She still wasn’t completely convinced, but even she was beginning to believe it.
The bed shifted as Linc stood. “You’ve been painting.”
She looked up at the border she had just started working on, the gold-painted words shimmering in the bright morning sun.
Linc read the words out loud. “He turns not back who is bound to a star.” He stuck his hands in his back pockets. “Da Vinci, right? I remember that. You cut it from a magazine once and gave it to me. I kept it for a long time.”
“Did you?” Jillian rubbed her cheek against the top of Ford’s head. “It still reminds me of you.”
He turned then to face her. “Funny. It always reminded me of you.”
Her smile froze at the knocking on the front door. “Oh, no—it’s probably Lessie bringing Gracie back.”
Linc began to pull on his shirt. “It’s okay. It’s almost eleven o’clock, so there’s no reason why I can’t be here measuring your kitchen. I’ll go see who it is and then I’ll leave, okay?”
She nodded once. “But will you be back?”
He walked over to the bed and kissed her hard on the lips as his answer.
She heard his steady tread on the steps and then the sound of the door opening. And then she heard the deep voices of men talking before Linc came up the stairs again, an odd expression on his face.
Placing Ford on her shoulder and patting him on the back, she looked up at Linc. “Who is it?”
Linc bent down to retrieve his socks and shoes. “Your husband. Or I guess I should say your ex-husband. He says he’ll wait on the porch.”
Jillian felt strangely calm as she gathered up the baby and slid off the bed. “But it’s Saturday—he said he wouldn’t be here until tomorrow. Did he bring . . . ?”
Linc’s lip twitched. “The slut Joanie? No—he’s alone. If you want me to, I’ll go to Lessie’s and pick up Grace.”
She nodded. “Thanks. I guess I’ll get dressed and bring the baby down.”
Linc looked at her, his gray eyes unreadable. “I’ll see you later, then.”
She nodded again, and he left without kissing her but with a promise to return. She thought of Rick downstairs, waiting for her, but she felt no jitters, no self-consciousness and no personal repercussions. She remembered Linc’s touch and felt stronger somehow, as if newly emerged from a long, dark tunnel into a day of blinding brightness. She could face Rick now without anger, without recrimination. And somewhere, the thought came to her that maybe she should thank him.
Calmly, she placed Ford in the small cradle by her bed, then padded across the wood floor toward her closet. Pausing at her dresser, she bent to peer into the caterpillar jar Grace had left there for Jillian’s safekeeping.
Inside, a completely clear chrysalis still perched on a twig, but it now gaped open like a mouth waiting to be fed. And there, at the top of the jar near the lid, was a monarch butterfly, waving its wings at her from the underside of a glossy green milkweed leaf.
If she doesn’t struggle through the small hole she makes in the cocoon, she’ll skip that whole step and never learn to fly. And what sort of life would that be? Jillian rested her elbows on the dresser, remembering Linc’s words and watching the new butterfly rest after its journey of metamorphosis. It had managed to squeeze through the shell of the chrysalis, the gossamer wings like solid air, straightening and strengthening them so that they would be able to take flight.
With one last look at the butterfly, Jillian moved toward her closet with a light step, almost believing for the first time in her life that maybe it was time to learn to fly.
CHAPTER 19
JILLIAN STARED INTO HER CLOSET FOR A LONG TIME, FLIPPING PAST the hangers that held all the shapeless sundresses that had once made up her complete summer wardrobe when she’d lived in Atlanta. But now it was like staring into the closet of a stranger, and she couldn’t imagine slipping into a single one of them, any more than she could stand the thought of wearing another maternity dress.
Shutting the closet door with disgust, she went to her dresser and pulled out a pair of denim shorts and a cotton T-shirt, items she’d bought since Ford’s birth. They were comfortable and fit her new curves well. Rick might frown at the casualness of it, but she simply didn’t care. She wasn’t his concern anymore.
After slipping on a pair of flat sandals, she changed and dressed Ford, then carried him downstairs. She found Rick on the back porch and she watched him through the screen door for a few moments before he realized she was there. He hadn’t changed at all. She hadn’t really expected him to, but thought that maybe in their time apart from each other he would at least appear different to her.
He was still tall, sandy-haired and clean-shaven. Even in pressed khakis and button-down shirt, he looked like the successful lawyer he was—if one didn’t notice the Ray-Bans in his shirt pocket and the Barbie doll that hung loosely in one of his hands.
She pushed open the door and he looked up, a confused expression passing rapidly across his face. He stood slowly but waited for her to close the distance between them.
“Hello, Rick. It’s been a while.”
He tried a halfhearted smile, and she gave him a full point for attempted civility. “Yeah, it has been, hasn’t it?” His gaze moved down to the bundle in her arms. “And this must be Ford.”
Jillian moved closer and held up the baby, not yet handing him over. She was oddly reluctant to let her son pass from her grasp, even if into the arms of his father. It was as if the closeness she’d built with her son couldn’t be shared with this man who was as much a stranger to her as he must be to Ford. “Ford, this is your daddy. Rick, this is Ford.”
Rick slowly touched the baby’s nose, cheeks and earlobes, finally allowing his finger to be grabbed by a tiny fist. He smiled fully this time. “He’s great.” His gaze settled back on Jillian. “I’m sorry I’m a day early. I found a few connecting flights that made it here sooner, so I booked them. I couldn’t wait to see Gracie and Ford.”
“I understand. Nice tan, by the way.” One point for civility for me, too, she thought.
He rubbed his hand self-consciously across the nape of his neck. “Thanks. And you look, well, you look good. I didn’t expect . . .”
She met his gaze, waiting for his words.<
br />
Finally, he shrugged. “I don’t know. . . . You just look different. You seem . . . happy.”
Jillian swayed with Ford in her arms. “You make it sound like a foreign word.”
He studied her for a moment. “Well, for you, yeah, I’d say it was. To be honest, I was a little worried about what I’d be finding here. I had visions of you holed up on the sofa and both kids wondering what to do with you.”
She frowned, remembering the woman he had known and realizing she couldn’t picture her face. She felt a little sick. “Was I really that bad?”
He shrugged again, not answering. “This place seems to agree with you.” He turned around, taking in the porch with the hanging flowers, swaying hammock and rocking chairs. “I can almost understand why you never brought me here.” Rick moved toward the small brick wall that surrounded the porch and looked out at the ocean. “I can certainly see why you love it—it would have been great to vacation here in the summer.”
He looked as if he would say more, but stopped. Turning back around, he moved toward her and the baby. “Can I at least hold him?”
Reluctantly, she handed Ford over, feeling bereft when the heat of the little body left her own. Rick’s large hands cupped the baby’s head, holding him at arm’s length to get a better look at him. “He’s a big guy.”
“Yes, he is.” She watched her ex-husband smile at their son, and she thawed a little toward him. With a small smile, she said, “Wait until you see Gracie—I think she’s grown six inches since you last saw her.” Jillian crossed her arms over her chest, studying the man she had once felt so grateful to. Grateful enough to give him two children. “She’s missed you.”
“I’ve missed her, too. Where is she?”
“She spent the night at a friend’s. Linc went to pick her up—she’ll be back any minute.”
“Yeah, I met Linc. Is he a good friend of yours?”
Jillian blushed under Rick’s probing gaze. “I’ve known him since I was a kid. He restored this house and sold it to me. He was going to use it as a rental—that’s why it was all furnished—but when he knew I was looking at it, he went ahead and sold it.” Jillian blushed again when she realized she was rambling to change the subject, and mentally kicked herself for giving so much away.
Rick looked down at Ford as the baby began to root on his shoulder. “You’ve changed, Jillian. You don’t seem like the same woman who didn’t like to go to the gas station by herself.”
Jillian squinted up at him, shielding her eyes with her hand. “I’m not her anymore.” She turned her back on him and looked out at the sea oats moving under the warm sun. “And I’m glad. She wasn’t a person I particularly liked.”
She faced him again and his brown eyes met hers over the head of their son. He didn’t say anything, and she wondered if her rejection of her old self had seemed like an affront to him. After all, he had once loved that girl—the girl she had buried as soon as she had felt the warm Pawleys sand under her toes. A twinge of regret gripped her. Regardless of how things had ended up, she would always owe Rick a great deal.
She moved toward the door. “Come on in and I’ll get you something to eat before Gracie gets back.”
“I was wondering when you were going to do that.”
“Do what?”
“Give me food. You’re always feeding people.”
Jillian held open the screen door and waited for Rick to go past her. “Linc says the same thing.”
Rick stopped in front of her, his brown eyes gazing thoughtfully into hers. She tried to remember the years of being married to him, sleeping with him, making children with him. But it was as if she’d already packed those years away and forgotten them like an old pair of jeans, remembering how comfortable they were but not what they looked like.
Rick didn’t say anything and walked past Jillian into the house.
Ford was swinging in the baby swing, and Rick and Jillian were sitting at the kitchen table, sharing a plate of pecan pralines when the front door banged open and Gracie came running into the room and threw herself at her father. Jillian felt an unfamiliar stab of gratitude as she watched Rick embracing their daughter—gratitude that Rick could find so much love in his heart for the child he shared with a woman who had never really loved him the way he had deserved.
“Daddy!” she squealed, throwing her arms around his neck. She jerked back and stared at the other people in the room, including Linc, who had followed her inside at a more sedate pace and now towered in the doorway. “Did you bring . . . ?”
“No!” Linc and Jillian shouted simultaneously. More calmly, Jillian said, “Daddy came alone.”
Gracie turned back to Rick. “I’ve got so much to show you. There’s the creek and dolphins and Mrs. Michaels—that’s my teacher—and my school and Mrs. Weber. And you have to meet my best friend, Mary Ellen. Have you seen Spot yet?”
Jillian patted Grace’s head. “I think you’ve worn him out already, Gracie. And don’t forget the beach.”
Grace looked up at her with somber brown eyes. “No, I don’t wanna. It rained a lot last night. And remember what happened last time it rained a lot.”
Jillian’s eyes met Linc’s for a brief moment before she turned her gaze back on Rick and Grace. “There was a little cave-in on the beach during the last storm. It scared Gracie, and she hasn’t wanted to go down there. But maybe you can take her further up the beach by the Webers’. She’ll show you.”
Grace crawled off Rick’s lap and walked over to Linc. She tugged on his hand, and he squatted so he could look her in the face. “She can see the sky now. But she can’t breathe. She just wants to breathe.”
Jillian felt the rush of cold all over her body, as if she’d just plunged into a pool of icy water.
Rick sent a questioning look to Jillian, who responded by shoving the pralines closer to him. She mouthed the words “imaginary friend,” and that seemed to satisfy him. He put another praline in his mouth as Grace skipped back to sit on his lap.
“Are you gonna stay here with us?” She smiled up at her father, and Jillian realized perhaps for the first time how she didn’t resemble him at all. It was as if her features had shunned her father’s genes and clung to the ones of her mother’s ancestors.
Rick choked a little and said, “Ah, no. I’m staying at the Pelican Inn. It’s close by, though.”
“But why not stay here? Jilly-bean’s bed is big enough for both of you.”
Jillian could feel Linc’s stare on her, and she refused to look at him. She plucked Grace off of Rick’s lap. “I’m sure Daddy is more comfortable at the inn, sweetie. Why don’t you run upstairs and put on your swimsuit with some shorts, okay?”
Gracie shot her a look complete with furrowed brows, but ran upstairs to do as she was told.
Rick had stood and moved away from the table, leaving the dirty dishes. “She still calls you Jilly-bean.”
Jillian wiped her palms across the front of her shorts. It hadn’t sounded like an accusation, but she still bristled. “Yes, well . . .” Stealing a glance at Linc, she looked at Rick again and took a deep breath. “I’d like to talk about custody arrangements while you’re here.”
Rick acted as if he hadn’t heard her and instead looked toward the doorway where Gracie had disappeared. “She’s . . . wonderful. I’ve never seen her so energetic. Or happy.” He turned to face Jillian again and studied her for a long moment. “I came prepared to take them both back with me, you know. Without opposition.”
Jillian stabbed her fingernails into the sides of her legs, afraid to move. “And now?”
“We’ll work it out before I leave,” he said, running his fingers through his hair, and doing nothing to ease the tenseness Jillian felt. “I’m going to go back to the inn and change into shorts. Tell Grace I’ll be right back.”
She hadn’t realized how much she needed an answer from him. But she would wait. And somehow, she wasn’t afraid. She took a deep breath, smelling the ocean, and felt s
trengthened.
“Thank you,” she said, looking into his eyes again and wondering what it was she had always been looking for there and had never found.
He nodded to her and Linc, then left. She felt Linc move up behind her, enfolding his arms around her. She leaned back into his embrace, thinking that maybe here, with him, she might finally find what she had sought all her life.
Jillian sat in the hammock on the porch, watching the sun sink lower in the sky and holding a very tired and sunburned Grace. Her daughter had spent a fun-filled day with her father, which unfortunately hadn’t included sunscreen for either one of them. Gracie was tired and cranky and complaining about her reddened skin, despite the soothing lotion Jillian had applied.
“I don’t know why Daddy couldn’t spend the night.”
“I know, sweetie. It takes a bit of getting used to, doesn’t it? I know Daddy wanted to spend more time with you, but we’re not married anymore, so he needs to stay in his own place. That doesn’t mean that we both don’t still love you very much. Okay?” She leaned down and kissed Grace’s forehead, the skin hot under her lips. “And Daddy said he’d be back for breakfast tomorrow morning, so you won’t even have time to miss him.”
Gracie stuck out her lower lip. “Yes, I will. I’ll miss him all night until the morning time.”
Jillian didn’t bother to raise the point that Gracie would undoubtedly be sleeping the entire time. They swung for a little longer before Jillian remembered the butterfly. “Constance hatched today.”
Gracie sat up quickly. “Today? Really? Where is she?”
“She’s upstairs in the jar on my dresser.”
Gracie scrambled out of her mother’s lap and onto the porch floor. “I’ve got to go see her.”
The little girl ran inside, her sandals clattering on the wooden stairs. Jillian stood, the hammock swinging in her wake, and moved to rewind Ford’s baby swing. Straightening, she stared out across the way to Linc’s house. All was quiet there and on the beach, with the workers taking the weekend off. The roof was completed now on all sides, and the stark new wood made the house resemble a phoenix rising from the sand. So much like Linc.
