Sue was an emotional mess when Rick followed her out to the living room after she’d put Carrie down for the night.
How had she ever thought they could separate “them” from “him and Carrie”? As though he was two different people.
Or she was.
“Okay, that’s done,” he said, standing in the middle of the room. “Visitation’s over. Can I just be Rick again?”
If only it were that easy.
Or in any way possible.
“I don’t know how to do that,” Sue told him. “I mean, what are we doing here? Being playmates? For how long? When does it end? How do we know when it’s time?”
“I’m okay with playmates, if that works for you.”
Of course it didn’t work for her. Was the man an idiot?
If he was, he was no more idiotic than she’d been. She stood with her back to him, trying to decide what to do next. Disinfect the changing table, put clean sheets on the bassinet or rearrange the furniture. “I’m not a toy.”
“Sue.” He took her hand, pulled her around to face him. “I was merely repeating your words back at you.”
She studied him. And nodded.
“I don’t mind being your playmate, but I am also your friend and whatever else you’ll let me be.”
“See,” she said, making herself face him down before she started to cry again, “that’s the problem with you. You don’t know how to keep your distance.”
“I thought that was your job.”
Damn him. Did he have to be so…so…
Right?
“Look, Rick, I’m tired. The twins took more out of me than I realized. And I’ve got accounting work to do. It’s probably best if you go. For tonight.”
She’d almost made it sound final. Almost.
But then, he’d be back on Wednesday, regardless of what happened between the two of them. He was visiting Carrie. And she was an employee of the agency that had custody of the child.
“I…” He ran the back of his fingers down her face, stopping short of her collarbone.
Sue turned her head, holding his hand captive between her cheek and shoulder.
“What’s going on, sweetie?” he asked. “What happened between last night and tonight?”
Babies leaving. Reminding her that everything was temporary. Because she needed it that way. Joe’s call. Rick needing Carrie. Her needing him.
“Nothing. I’m just confused about what we’re doing here. That’s all.” She released his hand, but he didn’t move it.
“I’m a little confused myself.” He rubbed his thumb along her lips. “I get the feeling that we’re not in control as much as we think we are.”
“Me, too. And I can’t have that.”
“So let’s take control. You wanted to know when and how it ends? Let’s decide.”
Had he found a way out for them? A solution? “How do you decide something like that? We’ll know each other until Christmas and then go our separate ways? Or until one of us gets bored? Or do we just say we’ll be friends until Carrie’s future is decided?”
None of the options seemed credible. Or acceptable.
“Why don’t we just let go of the outcome. We understand each other’s boundaries. Let’s abide by them.”
She had to get rid of him before she let him in any further. He was already dangerously close to trespassing on sacred ground.
“Your mother’s coming tomorrow,” Sue stated.
“I know. At seven.”
“You do?”
“Yes.”
“Since when?”
“Friday.”
“You knew all weekend.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t say anything?”
“Did you?”
Well, no, she hadn’t. Because it hadn’t been her place. She was entrusted by the state to keep information regarding her charges confidential.
He wasn’t under any such stipulations.
“Who told you?” Had he talked to his mother and not told her?
“Sonia.”
Sue should have figured it out. Would have if she wasn’t so damned upside down on this one. She was losing control. Losing clarity.
She had to take charge here.
“It’s my job to help your mom acclimate. To do anything I can to facilitate her ability to be a good mother to Carrie.”
“You’re so bound and determined to throw my mother in my face. I’m beginning to wonder if you aren’t playing favorites, after all. I’m just not the favorite.”
Shocked that he’d even think such a thing, Sue stared. She wanted to argue. To deny his accusation. And was even more shocked when she couldn’t. Was he right? Was she overcompensating?
“My report to the committee will be fair,” she assured him. “I paid close attention to your visit tonight.”
“Uh-huh.” He slid his hands in the pockets of his pants. “And how’d I do?”
“Great. You’re a natural at handling a baby.”
“And?”
“Your situation reminds me of my mother’s,” she started. “She grew up without that sense of being a full-fledged member of a family. She was always on the outside looking in. She got to live with them, call herself one of them, but it was never quite the real deal. Like you, in all those foster homes. You could pretend you were a member of the family, but you always knew you weren’t.”
“What’s your point?”
“Look what that did to my mother. The same thing it sounds like it did to you. As soon as you were out on your own, you found a relationship and wanted to get married, to raise a family, to have a family of your own.”
His eyes narrowed. “Yeah.”
“Not like most people want families. You want an all-consuming relationship. Just like my mother. Except that she was a little luckier when she met my dad then you were with Sheila. Because my dad wanted the same thing she did.”
“Again, what’s your point?”
“You want Carrie to be your all-consuming family.”
“I believe family is everything, yes.”
“I don’t want you to have her because of the risk that she’d grow up like I did. You’d smother her. Suffocate her. Especially after having lost Hannah.”
He looked as though she’d slapped him. “That’s unfair.”
“Maybe,” she conceded. “But look how much you’ve been here. We’ve only known each other a few weeks and you’re practically living with us.”
He pulled back, his entire countenance stiffening.
“I thought you wanted me here.” His eyes held no warmth at all.
She had. She did. And that was a big part of the problem. Not his, though. Hers.
“What I want is beside the point. I just think you have too many issues to be good for Carrie. You’ve been hurt so much. You can’t see your mother clearly. Can’t give her the benefit of the doubt, and I understand why. But that doesn’t make it good for Carrie. And then there’s Hannah. You have so many scars….”
“And my mother doesn’t?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t met her yet.”
“Well, give me a call after you do,” he said, heading for the door. “Or better yet, don’t. Maybe you’re right. Maybe we need time apart to figure out what we’re doing here. I’ll see you Wednesday at four.”
Before she could come up with a reply, he was gone.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“WHAT’S UP, MAN?” MARK huffed as he went for the rebound.
“Why does anything have to be up?” Rick was first to the ball. Took it back.
“A Tuesday afternoon game is a sure sign that something’s wrong.” Mark stayed right on him, his hands filling the space around him.
“I needed the exercise.”
“Bullshit.”
That reminded him of Sue. Of her response when he’d said it one time. But then, for the past two days, everything reminded him of Sue.
And Carrie.
“How about di
nner?” he asked when he’d made the basket. “Think Darla would agree to meet us someplace?”
“Probably.” Mark grabbed the ball, made a basket, rebounded and brought the ball down to hold it. “She’s waiting for my call,” he admitted. “Waiting to hear what’s going on.”
“Have her meet us at Tally’s,” Rick said, naming a bar and grill not far from their homes.
While Mark called his wife, Rick went in to shower.
“MS. KRAYNICK, please, come in.” Sue smiled as she opened her door to the woman, who was much younger looking than she’d expected.
“Thank you.” Nancy Kraynick could have been a seventies sit-com remake in her conservative pants and blouse, her flat shoes, tasteful makeup and understated, short dark hairstyle.
Her handshake was firm and she looked Sue straight in the eye. “You’ve already met my son,” she said. “Sonia told me he was here yesterday.”
“Yes.” And with those green eyes, she was the spitting image of him.
“He’s not all that fond of me.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“It’s all right, Ms. Bookman. Whether Ricky realizes it or not, I know my son.”
Sue liked the woman. She couldn’t help it; she just did. “Please call me Sue.”
She moved toward the family room, where Carrie waited in her swing.
“I want to tell you,” Nancy said, “up front, that anything my son told you about me is right. Ricky doesn’t lie.”
“Okay.”
“But he hasn’t seen me in years. He doesn’t believe I’ve changed, but I have, Ms. Bookman. I am not the woman who let him down. I need a chance to prove that to him.”
Other than being a little on the thin side, the woman didn’t look anything like an addict. Her complexion was rosy and healthy looking. Her eyes were clear.
“Well, maybe you’ll get your chance,” Sue told her. She hoped so. But didn’t count on it. “Now, would you like to see your granddaughter?”
“Oh, yes. You have no idea how badly.”
Nancy’s grasp was confident when Sue handed the baby to her. And when Carrie looked up and smiled, the older woman’s eyes filled with tears. “Hello again, my precious princess,” she said. “Grandma’s back and she’s going to be here for good this time. She’s got a room already prepared for you. A crib and a changing table, drawers full of clothes, a basket of toys…”
Sue supervised the visit—as she had done with Rick the night before—and knew that her lover’s chances of being granted his adoption were dwindling. Nancy Kraynick was wonderful.
And prepared.
As far as Sue knew, Rick hadn’t even thought about a box of disposable diapers, let alone a fully stocked nursery.
RICK WAITED UNTIL Darla and Mark had beers in front of them. “I got the stay and I’m moving forward with the adoption proceedings. I had my physical today.” He hadn’t even had a sip of his iced tea. Or looked at the menu to decide what he wanted for dinner.
Dinner didn’t much matter. Any food would do.
Mark frowned.
“Oh, Rick, are you sure?” Darla asked.
“Yeah, I’m sure. I had my first visit with her yesterday.”
His mother was having hers at that exact moment. Was Sue dressed in her “greeting” clothes? Filling his mother in on all of Carrie’s likes and dislikes? Her progress since his mother had last seen the baby, hours after her birth? Was she going to let his mom give Carrie her bath? And kiss her good-night?
Was she telling Nancy that she didn’t think Rick was the best choice for Carrie? Telling her that she’d help her, where she’d told Rick she couldn’t?
“How’d it go?” Darla asked, exchanging a glance with her husband as though Rick wasn’t sitting right there, able to note their obvious concern.
“Good. Great. The second I picked her up, she looked at me and smiled.” He remembered how wonderful that had felt. “I fed her and that was about it. My time was up. But I go back tomorrow.”
And he wasn’t going to let Sue Bookman get to him when he did. This was about Carrie now.
“So what happens next?” Mark asked.
“The agency conducts a thorough investigation. Medical records, criminal records, employment records. They inspect my home, my finances, my lifestyle.” And his mother’s. But he didn’t tell his friends that part. Carrie was not going to his mother. “Once that’s done, they’ll issue an order to place her in my home. They continue to monitor us for up to six months and then the court grants the adoption.” It was a simplified version of the process, but accurate.
“I can’t believe you’re really doing this,” Mark said.
“What happens if you change your mind?” Darla asked.
“Would you two please quit looking at me like I’m an alien? I’m not going to change my mind. I’m not crazy. I know, clearly and calmly, that this is the right thing for me to do.”
“You haven’t even cleaned out Hannah’s room.”
“Yes, I have.”
“You did?” his friends asked simultaneously.
“Last night. I had to make room for the new nursery equipment I had delivered this afternoon. I wanted her in the room across from me, so I can hear her if she wakes in the night.”
The room across from him. Hannah’s room. He’d had a long talk with his daughter about that during the early hours of that morning.
“What did you do with her stuff?”
“Put it in the spare bedroom.” Exactly as it had been in Hannah’s room. Or as much the same as it had been physically possible to make it. “Carrie might want some or all of it.”
The point was valid.
“Look, I’ve still got a long way to go in dealing with Hannah’s death. But this is the right thing to do. I’m ready to move on. To start over. I don’t think it’s any mistake that Carrie came into my life when she did. She needs a parent. And I was a great dad. More than that, I loved being a parent.”
Mark and Darla studied him. He withstood the scrutiny with ease.
Mark was the first to relent. “We’re here for you if you need anything, you know that, right?”
“Of course. That works both ways.”
Mark picked up his menu. “So, what sounds good for dinner?”
When their plates were empty and they’d covered every topic any of them could think of beside babies, Hannah and Rick’s state of mind, Mark reached for the bill.
“I’ve got this one,” Rick said.
And as they were walking out the door, Darla leaned over and asked, “Do you need a sitter? I’d be thrilled to have a baby in the house again.”
Though they’d been trying for years, Mark and Darla had yet to conceive a child of their own.
“I’d appreciate the help,” he told his friend. “I was going to get around to asking. I just wanted to give you time to realize I wasn’t completely insane, first.”
“Oh, Rick, we haven’t ever thought that. You’re the most together guy I’ve ever met,” she said. “You’re hurting, that’s all. And it’s our job to have your back while you do.”
It was after eight o’clock. His mother’s time was up. Rick drove home with mixed emotions. He missed Sue. But he was far richer than he’d dared to remember. He might not have a family living in his home yet, but he had a great job and true friends.
All in all, Rick was a very lucky man.
SUE FINISHED THE WORK due to Joe’s office in the morning. Put in a call to arrange courier pickup at eight. She checked on Carrie for the third time. Finished the laundry. There were fresh sheets on the three vacant cribs.
She called her parents, who were home. And Belle, who wasn’t. She read old birthday cards from Grandma Sarah. And tried to look at pictures of her, but couldn’t.
She carried her phone into the kitchen to pour a glass of tea, with Rick’s number in her head. She was not going to call him. He’d be there in less than twenty-four hours. As a potential adoptive parent.
W
hich was as it had to be.
As she wanted it to be.
Too restless to settle in front of the TV, too wired to go to bed, unable to concentrate on the book she’d started six months ago, she ended up in her bathroom, filling the tub with the relaxation crystals Belle had bought her last Christmas, and got undressed.
She thought about Rick, and the last time she’d had a long soak in the tub. Her phone was on the counter, but she was not going to call him.
But if he called—because he probably needed to know how his mother’s visit had transpired that night—she’d answer. She’d talk to him.
Be nice to him.
Maybe even apologize for being too outspoken the day before.
He might be willing to be friends with her even though she couldn’t help him with Carrie. He’d been willing before.
The thought comforted her. They’d had something special. He’d call.
He didn’t call.
Sue went to bed with a depression that seared her to the bone.
RICK HEARD AN unfamiliar cry when he approached Sue’s place Wednesday afternoon. Someone was hurt. Someone little.
He knocked and then tried the door. It was locked, but Sue was there, crying baby at her shoulder, unlocking it.
“Sorry,” she said, meeting his gaze almost shyly for a brief second. “He’s not feeling well.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
Sue had turned while he was asking the question, and he caught a glimpse of the baby’s face. “What happened to him?”
The vision of his daughter’s accident spun through his mind. But this child was alive. The baby was crying.
“His father.”
“His father what?” Died in the crash?
“Jake’s father didn’t like it when he told his son to be quiet and Jake didn’t do it.” Sue shuddered. Inhaled. “He decided to teach him discipline.”
The entire left side of the baby’s face was discolored. Swollen. “Is he going to be okay?”
“Yeah, they say he got lucky.” Sue kissed the unharmed side of the baby’s face, murmuring in his ear, and then said, “He’s got a couple of broken ribs. And lots of bruises, but no internal injuries. And no brain damage. Thank God.”
She seemed to be taking it all so calmly. But then she wasn’t looking him in the eye, so it was hard to tell what was really going on with her.
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