Almost a Family

by Donna Alward

  “I’ve got ten minutes before my next client.” He didn’t mention that there were a zillion things he could be doing in that ten minutes. He had precious few moments with Molly left, and for once, work could wait. If she was going to come to him, he had to give her reason to.

  He led her back past the exam rooms to the tiny cubbyhole that housed a fridge and a single set of cupboards. “Want a drink?”

  “No, thanks,” she said, pulling a stool up to the counter.

  “Mind if I do? I don’t often get an opportunity for a break.”

  “Go ahead.”

  He grabbed a can of soda from the fridge and sat opposite her, popping the top. “So what’s up?”

  “I have a problem.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Sara’s birthday is tomorrow.”

  “I know. I’ve had her present for a month.”

  Molly laughed. “Why am I not surprised? I, however, do not, and neither does Kim. I want to have a birthday party. Just the family, though. But I don’t know much about children her age. Everything I know is based on the last few weeks. I don’t even know where to start and her birthday is tomorrow.”

  “You want me to help.” He grinned at her. Shopping for Sara was fun. Doing it with Molly was exactly what the doctor ordered. It was as good an excuse as any to spend time with her. Even better was that she’d done the suggesting. She couldn’t accuse him of coming up with ways to keep them together.

  “Yes, I’m asking for your help. You know both of them better than I do. Though it pains me to admit it.”

  He ignored the last bit; it would be nice to have a conversation without an argument or recriminations being bandied back and forth. “I’m done here at six. We can hit the mall.”

  “Thank you. I think Kim’s finances are…well, tight, and I’d like to make up for that.”

  “You can afford to?” He offered it as a question, raising an eyebrow, rather than a statement. Molly had done what she’d said she would. She’d become successful. It was high time she realized that she had a family and he was pleased she was taking the initiative. If she wanted to spend a little of that money on making Sara’s birthday special, he had no problem helping. It also would be a good chance for him to see if he was right about her…that she’d changed and cared more about her family than about her career and her gold card.

  “My salary’s substantial, yes.” She blushed a bit. “And I’ve only had myself to support. Besides that, Sara’s had a rough time and she’s been so good through it all. It’s the least I can do.”

  Jason reached over and clasped her hand. Molly probably didn’t even realize it, but he’d seen changes in her over the past few weeks. When she’d arrived, she’d had this veneer around her, protecting her from feeling too much. He’d seen it the moment he’d opened the door. Yet bit by bit she’d relaxed. The designer clothes had been replaced with pieces of Kim’s more comfortable wardrobe. She’d expected less of Sara and had enjoyed more. Her cold manner had dissipated completely when he’d held her in his arms. It would be very easy to fall in love with her again. And very hard not to show her how he was feeling. But first and foremost he had to protect his heart. If things changed, they had to be on his terms. It was the only way he could keep himself from being hurt.

  “I’m glad you’ve realized how special they are,” he murmured, squeezing her fingers. “I’ll pick you up.

  His client was waiting, so he merely rose, dropped a fleeting kiss on the crest of her cheek and disappeared into an exam room. Oh yes, Molly held more power than she could possibly know. He’d tried, but no one in the intervening years had ever measured up. Now that she was back, he wasn’t sure he could risk that kind of heartbreak again. He had to be sure of her first.

  *

  They hit the toy store first. One stop shopping, Jason had said, and as Molly pushed the cart and Jason filled it up, her eyes grew larger and larger with the amount of loot that piled up.

  “Do you have a theme?”

  “A theme?”

  He laughed as they halted before the party supplies. “You know, what kind of plates, napkins, balloons, that sort of thing.”

  Molly looked over the selection, which covered an entire wall. “How about princesses or something?”

  “That sounds about right.” He leaned over to pick out plates, napkins and cups in pink and pale blue, and his scrubs stretched taut. Molly’s mouth watered. All the reasons she’d left so long ago faded into the distant past. Instead she was reminded of how he’d kissed her in the snow, how he’d held her hand this afternoon. She’d thought perhaps parting as friends would be easier, leaving the bitterness behind. But it wasn’t going to be easier at all. Molly knew leaving Jason, after all that had transpired, was going to hurt all over again. And this time she wouldn’t have righteous indignation to pull her through. If she came back again, they’d have to find a way to make peace with the past so they could move forward. Talk about a gigantic task. She laughed inwardly at herself. She never had been one to take the easy road.

  He put the items in the cart and looked up at her when she didn’t follow along. “Are you coming?”

  She nodded. “Sorry. Preoccupied.”

  “What did Kim want to get her?”

  They started down another aisle, one completely pink. Didn’t girl’s things come in any other color?

  “She said something about a play kitchen. But I don’t know what kind.”

  She really was horrible. She didn’t even know how to shop for a little girl, for goodness sake! She had to refer to a single man for shopping advice!

  “Here they are.” Jason halted in front of a display. “Which one do you like best?”

  She stared at the selection. “I don’t know. I’m hopeless at this sort of thing.”

  Jason leaned over. “You were four once. What would you have wanted?”

  Molly stared at the different designs, her heart heavy. “You know better than to ask that, Jason,” she murmured. She could feel him looking at her and refused to meet his gaze.

  “I’m sorry, Molly,” he said softly from behind her. “I never thought.”

  What he’d done with that one simple question was stir up old memories she had no desire to recall. She looked at the toys. Plastic or wood. Pink and white or tan and green. Ironing boards or dishwashers. So many choices in miniature and she knew that not once in her life had she had toys such as these. She understood Kim wanting to have things for Sara that they’d never had. Their own parents had divorced when they were young and their mother had all but abandoned them when they finished high school, remarrying and moving away.

  There’d been many things they’d wanted for as children—not only the presents but the thought and love that went behind the gifts. Feeling treasured. That was what had drawn her to Jason in the first place. He’d understood that need, as he’d felt it himself. The warm family he’d known had faded away after his brother Jonathan’s death. Molly and Jason had become fiercely independent, thinking they didn’t need those things. Kim had been younger and had handled things differently. For the first time, Molly faced the fact that she’d done the same thing as her mother—run away. She’d handled the neglect in one way, Kim the polar opposite. She’d put a wall around her heart; Kim had become the giving nurturer. It was obvious which one Jason truly needed. It was understandable.

  Kim was trying desperately to give her daughter a sense of family, all on her own. Kim was the one who had always realized what family meant even in the absence of it, had always been the nurturing one even though Molly had been oldest. Molly looked up and saw the biggest, most elaborate item and pointed. “That one. The one with all the bells and whistles.”

  Jason stared at it, his eyes flicking to the price tag. “It’s a bit expensive, don’t you think?”

  “I’ll cover it. Kim can accept this bit of help, just this once.”

  Jason picked up the tag. “It’s too big. We’ll have to give them this at the register an
d have it brought out.”

  Molly smiled then. The glee in the fact that the present was so big made her feel silly and childish, and she liked it. She had money and couldn’t think of a better way to use it than putting a smile on her niece’s face.

  “We need accessories.”

  They went down another aisle, Molly fighting the feeling that she and Jason were shopping for their own child. If they’d stayed together, they very well could have had a child Sara’s age. She shook off the feeling. Sara wasn’t their child, and she and Jason weren’t a couple. They were simply shopping for her niece’s birthday.

  She picked out a porcelain tea set in white with pink roses sprayed on the cups. She added a child’s size cobbler’s apron and a plastic carry bag of play food, so Sara’s playtime with her new kitchen would be complete.

  At the cash register she never batted an eyelash at the total, just took out her credit card, signed the slip and headed for the truck with Jason carrying the bags. They were followed out by an attendant who helped load the huge box in the back.

  “Now we need a cake.”

  Jason laughed. “Of course.”

  Molly checked her watch. “Is anything even still open?”

  “Yeah. The grocery’s open twenty-four hours.”

  Walking into the brightly lit store, it felt somewhat like a ghost town. Only a handful of shoppers wandered the quiet aisles. At the bakery counter, they ordered a cake to pick up the following day and made their way to the frozen section to pick up party food.

  She was putting animal shaped chicken nuggets in the cart when Jason’s voice came quietly behind her.

  “Do you feel it, too?”

  His words washed over her, soft and wistful, and she knew exactly what he meant. Did it feel strange to be shopping for a cake and presents for a blonde bombshell with curly hair and dark intelligent eyes so much like his?

  “A little.” She kept her back to him. Looking at him now wouldn’t be wise. She’d forget everything she desperately needed to remember. Like how she couldn’t afford for fantasy to take over common sense.

  “It could have been us.”

  Tears pricked her eyes as he put words to her earlier thoughts. So easily, if she’d followed in line with his plan. They could be celebrating their own little girl’s birthday, shopping together. But that had been the problem. He’d planned everything down to the last detail, and she hadn’t been ready for that. Now the chance had passed them by, and she did feel the pain of the death of that dream warring with the frightening prospect of hope that all hadn’t been lost.

  “Do you ever wonder?” he continued, close behind her. She could feel his body even though he never touched her.

  In the end, fear won.

  She took a fortifying breath and lied. “No. I’m not the kind of person who dwells on what might have been.”

  She felt his withdrawal in response to her icy words. The air cooled behind her and relief mixed with regret. He was making it harder and harder to leave, and she couldn’t forget that if she let him, he’d try to order her life all over again. He still didn’t see that what he’d done was wrong. He was still sure he was right and that she’d been wrong to run. They were both forgetting that and letting the nostalgia of the good things between them distract them from the big problem. A problem that wouldn’t disappear no matter where she lived. The one thing they hadn’t discussed since being home.

  It was one thing to remember the past. It was another to forget exactly why she’d left in the first place.

  “We’d better get going.” She turned the cart toward the checkout, heard his footsteps behind her but didn’t dare meet his eyes.

  She didn’t want him to know how much the lie had cost her.

  Chapter Eight

  Jason took Sara to the clinic with him the next afternoon, giving Molly time to prepare for the party. Molly went to work hanging streamers and a huge pink and white sign that had “Happy Birthday” emblazoned on it. The party was set for the kitchen. It would certainly be easier to clean up chocolate fudge cake with bright pink icing from the kitchen floor than the thick living room carpet.

  The dishes were placed on top of a white-and-pink paper tablecloth. Various princesses danced across it and the pattern was repeated on the paper plates, cups and napkins. Balloons had been delivered and were arranged around the room. Molly moved the cake in its plastic domed carton, hiding it behind the set of canisters and away from Sara’s keen eyes. She was nervous, of all things. Nervous at what Jason would think of what she’d done. Hoping it was good enough.

  She couldn’t blame him for thinking her cold and uncaring. From the moment she’d refused his ring, she hadn’t given him a reason to believe her anything different. He didn’t know all the fears, the uncertainty. He knew how lonely she’d been. All her life she’d longed for love. But he didn’t know that when it finally had happened, she’d let it swallow her up until she’d almost lost herself. She’d loved him so much that she’d almost let herself be assimilated into his ultimate life-plan. Leaving him had been a rebellious act of desperation to try to stay in one piece. She’d distanced herself from even her sister, the only one who might understand, in order to protect her heart.

  Now that she was home, seeing a glimpse of their past, the poignancy of the present and the seriousness of Kim’s condition… She knew she’d been utterly wrong. Perhaps not in breaking things off—Jason had been terribly heavy-handed—but she’d been wrong to run away and not deal with him. Wrong to stay far away from Kim and Sara. She was trying hard to make up for it. Today felt like a test, and knowing it was the time to find out if she’d pass or fail made her tummy twine up in tangly knots.

  Molly turned her head toward the ceiling as she heard Kim running the bathtub. Why was it so hard to resist the memories? Why couldn’t Jason have gotten fat and bald over the years, instead of becoming even more mouth-wateringly handsome? She put her head in her hands. It was time to face the truth, if only to herself. She’d never stopped loving him. It sounded easy, but was so very hard. She loved him for all the things that hadn’t changed, yet the reasons she left in the first place were still there. He would still expect her to be the one to do all the giving up. It wasn’t that she wasn’t willing to sacrifice. She always had been willing to compromise. It was knowing he would expect her to while he kept his life the same, knowing he’d have everything pigeon-holed in a cookie-cutter existence that still had her balking.

  For even if she were tempted to leave her life behind and start anew, she knew that if she did, she’d resent him for it sooner or later.

  When the phone rang she jumped, then swiveled to grab the cordless unit. Minutes later when she hung up, her hands shook and her stomach quivered.

  Her decision had just gotten that much harder.

  *

  Jason returned with Sara at five o’clock sharp. In his right hand, he held a bag containing a change of clothes, and in the other was a large box wrapped in birthday paper. Sara rang the doorbell and giggled at her mother, who opened the door wearing a pink party hat.

  “You take this.” He handed Kim the present. “I’m going to get changed first.”

  “Sure, go ahead. We’re just getting supper on.”

  He changed from his scrubs to jeans and a sweater and ran a hand through his hair.

  He didn’t have much time left, he knew it. Molly’s trip was nearly over and she’d be going back to Calgary unless he took some drastic action. But he wasn’t sure what that action should be. He’d tried to talk to her last night about the feelings that had run between them. He’d known she was thinking about what might have been. He’d sensed it, because he’d been feeling it, too. Maybe if they could start talking about how good things had been… But after he’d mentioned it, she’d shut him out completely. Shaking his head, he stuffed his dirty scrubs into the bag. Perhaps he should let her go. Maybe it would be easier for everyone that way. It was certainly long past time.

  When he enter
ed the kitchen, Sara was wearing her princess tiara and looking very regal in her favourite pink fairy dress, the layers of tulle puffing about her. Molly was taking a cookie sheet out of the oven and Kim overturned the deep fryer basket, dumping chicken nuggets on to a plate lined with paper towel.

  “Hey, girls,” he said from the doorway, and Molly spun, her hands still encased in blue oven mitts and holding the pan.

  “Feel better?” Kim spoke into the breach of silence that fell. Molly turned to get a spatula for the potato smiley faces, but not before Jason saw the fleeting expression of consternation on her face. She was isolating herself. And somehow he sensed it had nothing to do with last night.

  “Need some help?” he offered lightly, taking the plate from Kim. Molly still avoided his glance as she filled a bowl with the potato shapes.

  “We’re good,” Kim answered cryptically, but he could see by her overly bright smile that she knew exactly what was going on and dread curled around, dark and unknown, in his stomach. Something was wrong.

  Sara’s chatter at the table made up for the lack of conversation, but Jason watched Molly closely. Her mouth was thin and unhappy, her eyes weary. Once she met Kim’s eyes and he knew that whatever it was, Molly had confided in her sister. He was clearly out of the loop.

  “So what’s first, muffin?” He forced his tone to be light and happy for Sara’s sake. “Presents or cake?”

  Sara pushed away her plate, leaving half a nugget stuck in the circle of ketchup. “Presents! Presents!”

  He laughed. “You got it.” Disappearing around the corner, he brought out his present to her. She tore at the pink paper, giving an excited squeal as he helped her open the box.

  Inside was a puppet show. Taking off the plastic wrap, he showed her how to fold back the sides so it would stand alone, tie back the curtains with Velcro and open the bag of finger puppets inside. Eyes wide, she put on a lion and zebra while he donned a monkey and they acted out, wiggling their fingers and talking in sometimes high, sometimes growly, animal-ish voices.