by Nicole Baart
But before Jess could gather her thoughts to utter a single word, Cate heaved a huge sigh. It came from somewhere deep inside and snagged in her throat. “I’m sorry,” she said, tears welling in her eyes. O’Malleys was so dimly lit they seemed navy, bottomless. “I’m just so sorry about Evan.”
Jess hadn’t expected this. Or maybe she had. If Cate had been Evan’s lover, even for a season, it made sense that she would be devastated by his death. Jess felt herself icing over, her shoulders drawing back as she prepared for a fight.
“Thank you for your condolences,” Jess said coolly.
“Look.” Cate laid her hands palm down on the table between them and leaned forward. A tear spilled off her bottom lashes and disappeared down her cheek. “I know that you hate me and I know why. But you have to believe me that nothing ever happened between Evan and me. He was like a father figure to me.”
Father figure? He was less than ten years her senior.
“Or an uncle, a big brother,” Cate said, reading Jess’s expression and shaking her head as if it didn’t matter. “We were close, okay? We got along. Is that such a crime?”
“He was very secretive when it came to you,” Jess said, leaning back, farther away from Cate’s desperate attempts to make her understand. She didn’t know what to believe. “It seemed like there was always something going on between the two of you. I saw the looks you exchanged. I know you texted each other all the time.”
“It was innocent,” Cate insisted, but something in her face changed. She pulled back and laced her fingers together on the table between them. Took a deep breath. “Okay, it wasn’t exactly innocent, but it’s not what you think.”
Jess saw red and was horrified to feel her eyes prick with tears. She knew it. She knew it. But no, she would not cry in front of this perfect woman.
“Don’t,” Cate said quickly. “Don’t jump to conclusions. Hear me out.”
“It’s never okay to have secrets with another woman’s husband,” Jess hissed, her voice breaking to her great mortification. It was too late—she was crying. “Do you have any idea the pain you caused? The trouble you wreaked? I kicked Evan out of the house because of you.”
Something in Cate’s eyes flashed. She was a fighter, too. “Oh, that’s rich. Don’t you dare pin that on me.”
“Two dirty martinis?” One of the bartenders had appeared at their booth, bearing a circular tray with their elegant drinks. Light from the chandelier above them danced across the distinctive, V-shaped glasses in a way that seemed almost indecent. Or at least far from suited for the heaviness between them, the tears on both their cheeks.
“Yes,” Jess said, clearing her throat. “Thank you.”
He set the martinis down and all but scurried away. Jess watched as Cate grabbed her drink and took two, three swallows in rapid succession. Then she set it down and plucked the diminutive sword from the edge of the glass, sliding an olive off with her teeth as if she were drawing strength from the cocktail. Jess wanted to do the same, but she settled for a tiny sip and was rewarded with a flame of alcohol that burned all the way down. It felt good.
“We weren’t having an affair,” Cate said, picking up the conversation as if they had never been interrupted. She shrugged out of her heavy coat and let it pool around her waist. Jess surmised the alcohol was making her hot, too. “I was never interested in Evan that way. But you know what, Jessica? He was never interested in me that way. I know what you think: pretty girl, single . . . But he only ever had eyes for one person and that was you.”
Jess didn’t know what to say, so she didn’t say anything at all.
“You were right, though; we did have a secret. And you might have known all about it, too, if you would have been just a little more willing to listen.”
“What do you mean?” Jess whispered.
“I know how you felt, Jessica, and maybe that was a breach of trust on Evan’s part.” She realized what she just said and rolled her eyes. “Fine. It was. But he needed someone to talk to and you certainly weren’t going to be it. So yes, he confided in me.”
“About what?” Jess said, but she was scared to hear the answer.
“Gabe.”
“What about Gabe?”
Cate ran her finger across the delicate rim of her glass, and then lifted it to her lips for another sip before she spoke again. “Evan was in contact with Gabe’s birth mom.”
“How long?”
“For years. From the beginning, I think.”
Jess waited for the sting of betrayal, but she felt nothing. She knew this. Max had already torn the band-aid off that particular wound. What she wanted to know was why.
“Did he ever tell you why? Why would he go against my wishes?” Jess took a greedy, angry pull of her drink while she waited for Cate to answer.
In the end, Cate answered a question with a question. “Why wouldn’t he?” she asked. “That woman gave birth to Gabe. What parent wouldn’t want to know about their kid’s birth mother?”
Me. I wouldn’t, Jess thought. If I had my way, I’d pretend she never existed at all. Which, of course, was shallow and shortsighted, maybe even cruel. It certainly didn’t conform to the hopeful outlook that they were encouraged to have during their home study and parenting classes. “This is a team effort,” Meredith had told them. “Adoptive families are at their best when they are supportive of and integrated with birth families.”
Jess had never wanted that. She wanted to be Gabe’s mama, in body and heart and soul. She wasn’t a jealous person, rarely selfish, but in this one thing she wanted it all. There was no room in her heart for Gabe’s birth mother.
Evan had been a bit of a different story. “It makes sense to me,” he said one night when they were lying in bed. The lights were out, the air in the room brittle because it was the middle of winter, but also because they were arguing. Jess was on her side, turned away from her husband.
“What makes sense?” she asked, taking the bait.
“Being involved with the birth mom. I mean, if I were an adopted child, I would want to know everything I could about my family of origin.”
The term sounded strange coming from Evan. What did he know about families of origin?
“If you give something up, you’ve closed that particular chapter in your life, don’t you think?” Jess tried to sound nonchalant, but her heart was thumping an unsteady rhythm. She already felt protective of her child-to-be.
“Well, this isn’t a something, is it?” Evan rolled over and reached between them to put his hand on the rise of her hip. He rubbed his thumb along the edge of bone where it jutted out. “It’s a someone. I’m not sure people are left behind as easily as an old couch or a bad habit.”
Jess felt a flash of fury. “Thank you for enlightening me, Saint Chamberlain. I wasn’t aware that people are more important than objects.”
“Come on.” Evan pulled her closer. “You know I didn’t mean it that way. I don’t want to fight.”
But Jess did want to fight. She felt possessive and greedy. Mine, she wanted to say. This child is all mine and has always been mine and will always be mine. Of course, she knew that kind of thinking was antithetical to the very ethos of adoption. And Jess knew those barbed, angry, selfish thoughts were emotionally immature and maybe even deplorable. She hated herself a little for being so uncaring, so she curled tighter into herself and ignored her husband’s advances.
Evan let it go. But when they heard that the mother who had chosen them to parent their child wanted a closed adoption, Jessica had silently sung the “Hallelujah Chorus.” Clearly Gabe was meant to be theirs.
“Is that what he was hiding from me?” Jess asked now, more to herself than to Cate. Obviously Evan had let the conversation drop at the time, but he had silently, secretly pursued it on his own.
“I think so,” Cate said. Her drink was gone and she looked longingly at the bar, seemingly contemplating another. But instead of flagging down a waiter, she pulled on her coat and stu
ck her arms through the sleeves. “I’d better get going. But yes, that’s what I came to tell you: Evan was in contact with Gabe’s birth mom. He even met her a couple times.”
“Do you know her name? Where she lives?”
Cate stopped with her hands on the zipper of her coat. “That’s the other thing. She died. Gabe’s birth mom, I mean. I’m not entirely sure how, but Evan was really shaken up about it. I mean, really upset.”
“Why?” The question was out before Jess could curb herself. She sounded downright nasty, even in her own ears. “I mean, of course he was upset. But did you ask him why it affected him so much?”
“Look, I don’t know. But I can tell you that Evan kept a file on her. I never read the papers or saw what was inside, but I know that’s what he was doing. He took patient notes the old-fashioned way, scribbling his thoughts down on a piece of paper instead of using the Dictaphone that the other doctors liked. It drove the secretaries crazy, but he liked to do things his own way.”
Jess knew.
“But sometimes I’d catch him taking different notes. They were handwritten, too, scrawled on a yellow legal pad. He always flipped the notepad upside down when I caught him writing in that particular notebook.”
“Who packed up his office?” Jess asked, suddenly thinking of the boxes in her car.
“I did.” Cate ducked her head sheepishly and finished zipping up her coat. She stood and took the scarf that she had hung over the back of the booth. Winding it around her neck, she said defensively, “Beth called and called you. Finally she asked me if I would just box up his things.”
“It’s fine,” Jess said. “I don’t care. But is the notebook there? Did you find his notes?”
Cate shook her head. “No. He didn’t keep them in the notebook anyway. He always tore out the pages and put them in an accordion file. I didn’t find that, either.”
“So you think the letters from Gabe’s birth mom are in there?”
“I don’t know,” Cate admitted. “I guess so. Hang on . . .” She paused and thrust one hand deep into the pocket of her coat. Taking out a business card, she handed it across the table to Jess. “I almost forgot.”
“What’s this?” Jess accepted the card, fingering one bent corner as she watched Cate.
“I found it under Evan’s desk when I was cleaning out his office. I meant to stick it in one of the boxes but I forgot. It’s been in the pocket of my scrubs for weeks.”
Jess glanced at the front. “James Rosenburg” was written in gold foil, and beneath that “Attorney at Law.” She had never heard of James Rosenburg. He wasn’t local; at least, she didn’t think he was. Why would Evan need a lawyer?
“I would have just thrown it away,” Cate said, “but Evan wrote on the back. I thought it might mean something to you.”
Cate parted with a soft good-bye and her hand raised as if in blessing. Or maybe she was warding Jessica off, warning her to keep her distance now. Either way, Jess didn’t really care.
She flipped over the business card. A phone number, an address. At the very bottom, Evan’s careful handwriting in blue pen: Leave it alone.
Leave what alone? Jess couldn’t even begin to guess. All the same, she slid the card into her pocket beside the key that she had tucked there. She hadn’t really even had a chance to think about the key, to wonder why Evan had taped it to the bottom of his pencil holder. Maybe it had something to do with the accordion file. Maybe James Rosenburg was involved.
It wasn’t like Evan to be secretive, but clearly he had been keeping things from her. Jess needed that accordion file. She didn’t understand why her husband would go to such lengths to conceal a few handwritten notes about Gabe’s birth mom, but Jess was desperate to find out.
She finished her drink and threw a twenty on the table. Cate hadn’t paid, though Jess figured picking up her martini was the least that she owed the nurse after years of quietly loathing her.
It wasn’t until she was putting on her coat that Jess realized her quick errand had turned into an entire afternoon away. She snagged her phone off the table and glanced at the time. It was after six o’clock. Even more disturbing was the string of texts that she had missed from Max.
Fine
Where r u?
Trey is picking me
up in 15
I’m leaving g home
alone!!!!!
Fine—we r taking him
Jess wasn’t the cussing type, but she swore a blue streak in her head as she hurried out to her car. Max was going to be furious with her, and they had just reclaimed some ground. She’d make it up to him some way. Somehow. And she’d take Gabe out for supper. Just the two of them. It would be great.
One drink wasn’t enough to put Jess over the legal limit, but she felt a little woozy hopping behind the wheel all the same. She wasn’t buzzed, but she was a bit of an emotional wreck, and her conversation with Cate was playing in her mind on repeat. She scoured the words for nuance, for hidden meanings that she had missed the first time around. Against her better judgment, she believed Cate. Jess just wished that she would have listened sooner.
There was no time for regret as Jess rushed down back streets in the direction of Auburn High. The boys’ and girls’ varsity basketball teams played a Friday night doubleheader, and she knew the gym would be packed. It wouldn’t be easy to find Max and Gabe, but she could text them when she got to the parking lot. Maybe even have Max walk Gabe out so she wouldn’t have to go into the gym at all. Jess had never been a fan of big crowds, and the fishbowl quality of her life these days only made her want to avoid people even more.
When Jess arrived at Auburn High, the parking lot was completely full. People had even lined the sidewalk and pretended the end of each row had an extra space, by parking as if the painted lines didn’t mean anything at all. Jess had no choice but to crawl down a residential street, hoping for an open spot. She was over a block away before she found one. Jess parallel parked—a little crookedly—and grabbed her phone out of her pocket.
I’m here, she texted Max. Meet me at the door?
No response.
Jess zipped her coat all the way to her chin and even flipped up the faux fur–lined hood against the cold. She didn’t wait for Max to reply. Better to find her boys as quickly as she could, and then take Gabe home. Max loved his brother, but his patience wasn’t interminable.
The cold air nipped at Jess’s cheeks and her exposed hands, and she realized with a start that the alcohol had dulled her senses a little more than she had initially wanted to admit. It was sobering, the cold air, and the understanding that she had been a negligent mother. Well, maybe “negligent” was a bit harsh.
Jess could hear the squeak of sneakers and the rhythmic beat of a basketball being dribbled down the court long before she was ensconced in the hot gym. The girl at the ticket table recognized her and waved her through, and Jess was grateful that she didn’t have to dig in her purse for her faculty card.
The lights of the gym were startlingly bright after the subdued mood lighting of O’Malleys and the inky night outside. Jess blinked at the sudden onslaught of harsh, fluorescent bulbs and the screams of hundreds of adolescents. By the way the crowd was on their feet shouting, it was apparent Auburn had just scored.
“Hi, Jess.”
Jessica turned to see one of her coworkers give her a half smile. Luke Tucker was a math teacher, a twentysomething new recruit whom all the female (and a few of the male) students had a crush on. He wasn’t traditionally handsome, but he was confident, and there was something about the way he slid both hands in the back pockets of his skinny jeans. He was sexy. Everyone thought so. Luke was about the last person that Jess wanted to run into.
“Hi, Luke,” she said, squinting at the crowd across from where she stood. She hadn’t spotted Max or Gabe yet.
“Looking for your boys?” Luke said. “I’m on duty. I’ve been here since the start and saw them come in a while ago. I thought they were with you.”
/>
“I’m picking them up,” Jess said. “Well, I’m picking Gabe up. Max came with a friend.”
“I haven’t seen them for a while,” Luke admitted. He gave her a conspiratorial wink. “Gotta admit, though, I’m feeling a little jealous.”
“Excuse me?”
He smiled crookedly and then said in a whisper: “I could really go for a drink right about now.”
Jess was mortified. How could he smell liquor on her? She’d had a single drink.
“Oh,” she said. “After the game, I suppose.”
Luke nodded and then pointed across the gym. “I see Max. In the student section, right below the scoreboard about halfway down.”
Jess followed his directions and sure enough, there was Max tucked in the very middle of a crowd of teenagers. They were watching the game, but something about the way Max stood at the center of it all—bearing the weight of one boy’s arm slung across his shoulders and inclining his head to listen as another boy shouted in his ear—betrayed his sudden star status. But Max didn’t seem to be enjoying himself. His mouth was a thin, tight line, his jaw set. As Jessica watched, he attempted a smile for the classmate who had been regaling him with a story, but it was flat and insincere. He looked miserable.
But even more concerning was the fact that Gabe was nowhere to be seen.
“Thanks,” Jess said, preparing to cross the gym. She would wait until the action was at the other end of the court and pray that the entire gymnasium didn’t witness her searching desperately for her son. “If Gabe comes this way, would you hang on to him until I come back?”
“Sure thing,” Luke said. “He’s probably playing with the little kids in the balcony.”
Jess doubted it. Gabe didn’t like big crowds and he certainly didn’t like groups of screaming children. If he wasn’t in the gym, he was somewhere quiet. She just didn’t know where.
There was a trio of teenage girls waiting to cross, and when the players ran to the opposite end of the basketball court, Jess joined them hurrying over the polished floor. The girls melted into the sea of people, but Jess stood at the corner of the bleachers, trying to get Max’s attention. His gaze was elsewhere, anywhere and everywhere but on Jess. Finally, someone noticed her. The message was passed, telephone-like, up through the rows of cheering kids until someone finally tugged Max’s sleeve and he turned to see her waving at him.
