What Happiness Looks Like (Promises)

by Lenfestey, Karen

  She scanned his text messages. Mostly work-related. But then she saw the initial H. Could that stand for Heather? The woman Joely saw him with? The text read: “RU still interested? Let me know.”

  A trickle of saliva made its way down her dry throat and she started to cough. She slammed the phone shut and placed it back on the table right before Mitch returned.

  He slid into the seat across from her. “Are you all right?”

  Still coughing, she nodded her head. She cleared her throat and patted her chest. “I need to ask you something and you have to tell me the truth.”

  His face blanched. “OK.”

  The words wouldn’t quite come. “Are you. . .are you bored with me?”

  He lowered his voice and leaned in. “Now isn’t really the time to talk about this.”

  She pressed her back against the booth. “So I’m right.” She felt like she might hyperventilate. Time to push through. “Are you seeing another woman?”

  Heaving a sigh, he rolled his eyes. “How many times do I have to say it? There isn’t anyone else.”

  Carefully she studied his face, watching for the telltale eye twitch. He appeared to be telling the truth. There wasn’t anyone else. That left her with one other option. “So you admit you’re bored with me.”

  He squirmed in his seat. Then his focus fell to the phone. He picked it up and tucked it in his back pocket. “Kate, we don’t know if Lily’s going to follow through with the adoption. I want to have a back-up plan. And it seems like every time I come up with a solution for getting a baby, you veto it.”

  The edges of her eyes stung. Sadness had almost become her body’s natural state. “That’s because you’re giving up.”

  Shaking his head, he stared off into the distance. “As always, there’s no getting through to you.” Just then his phone rang. He checked the caller i.d. and stood. “I want to take this.” He threw some bills on the table and rushed outside.

  Once again, he left her with tears in her eyes.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  JOELY

  Joely stared at the blank paper for so long she felt her pupils burning. What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she paint anymore?

  The kiln in the corner was on, filling the room with a warm clay smell. The waif-like art teacher with his gray ponytail hovered over her shoulder. “It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece. Starting something—even if it ends up being a mistake—is better than never trying at all.”

  His statements resonated with her on a deeper level. Her eyes darted to the side to catch a glimpse of Dalton. His kiss had freaked her out so much that she hadn’t spoken to him all week. Until this morning when Jake forced her to call Dalton just to have something to do.

  The teacher gestured toward the counter beneath a far window. “I have some magazines over there. Maybe if you looked through them, you could get inspired.”

  Joely lowered her head and eagerly crossed the too-warm room. Now that Dalton knew she used to paint, she was especially embarrassed by her inertia. She pulled a chair up to the counter so she could sit and leaf through the magazines for as long as it took. Probably the rest of class, she figured.

  Better Homes and Gardens. Today’s Artist. Architectural Digest. Nothing appealed to her. Flowers, lofts, baseball diamonds. No, no, no. What she wanted to paint was a moment, an emotion, a beginning.

  That was it. A picture formed in her mind. A beautiful image—she could see it so clearly.

  She scurried across the room and picked up her pencil to sketch the outline. Before she knew it, she filled it in with watercolor paints. It flowed so easily.

  “Wow,” a male voice murmured. She turned to see Dalton staring at her creation. “That’s amazing.”

  KATE

  Incense filled the air in the tiny room as Kate lie face down on a table, her head poking through a cutout, staring at the floor. She tried not to jerk as the acupuncturist placed the needles in her back. It unnerved her a bit that she couldn’t see what the man was doing, but she knew it would be worse if she saw it coming.

  She hated needles, but she could tolerate them if she believed they could answer her prayer. She’d been stuck plenty of times during the medical tests and hormone injections. So why not try acupuncture? Joely had a friend who swore acupuncture cured her infertility. And Kate was truly desperate.

  The acupuncturist, an Asian man in his fifties, flicked her skin with his fingers twice before inserting each needle. Somehow that desensitized her to the actual prick. He could teach the doctors a thing or two about easing a patient’s pain level.

  “Alldone,” she heard him say. He spoke quickly so that all of the words blended together. “Relax-and-lie-still. I-be-back-in-twenty-minute.”

  Imagining needles poking out of her like a pin cushion, she tried not to freak out. This had better work. Why didn’t Mitch want to celebrate their anniversary? And who was “H”? Was that the woman Joely saw Mitch eating dinner with? If so, what did she mean by that text: “Are you still interested?” Was Mitch was toying with the idea of an affair? If only Kate could get pregnant, he’d return all of his attention back home.

  Any more time spent ruminating on her shaky marriage would drive her insane.

  Think happy thoughts. Like maybe these needles would trigger her body to do what was natural. There wouldn’t be any need to adopt Lily’s baby or to use an egg donor.

  Time dragged on and on. She wondered how many needles were in her back. Now her nose itched. Did she dare move? Probably not. But she needed to scratch so badly. Seriously. How could he expect her to lie here for this long?

  She wriggled her nose like a bunny rabbit. That didn’t help.

  She blinked her eyes and moved her facial muscles. God, this was worse than poison ivy. She couldn’t take it any longer. “Help!”

  # # #

  Kate oohed and aahed her way through the baby clothes at Macy’s. Poor Dayna didn’t have much of a wardrobe—just the blue-striped blanket from the hospital and the newborn clothes Kate and Mitch had bought. Unfortunately, Dayna was already starting to outgrow them.

  Kate had hoped that Joely would share some of Anna’s baby stuff. She knew Joely kept special things, like Anna’s christening gown and pink Easter dress and matching bonnet, in a box in her closet. When Kate had asked, Joely had refused to let Lily have anything. Even though they both knew Joely would probably never have another baby.

  Dayna, the poor child, hadn’t been welcomed by a baby shower or grandparents or anyone. Just like Lily. Kate was going to make-up for that. She bought enough clothes to fill four bags and could barely carry them out of the store.

  She intended to place them in her minivan and drive home. But on her way out the door, her attention fixated on the juniors department.

  Lily wasn’t still a teenager, but with her narrow hips and small frame, she still looked like one. And in Kate’s mind, Lily would always remain the wayward adolescent girl who read Stephen King novels and didn’t bother to do homework because it was too conventional. She fascinated Kate like an unsolvable maze. But Kate believed if she persevered long enough, she would find the solution.

  She dropped her purchases for the baby in the van and then returned to fill four more bags with jeans, blouses, and accessories. Lily would be so surprised. Kate barely listened when the cashier told her the total.

  LILY

  Dear Dayna,

  I’m a terrible mom. I was missing Butch so much that when I finally got to leave the hospital, I went over to see him in the middle of the night. I didn’t know that you would wake up and need fed. This proves that I’m doing the right thing by giving you away. Plus I think Mrs. H really wants you. She bought you a bunch of baby clothes and everything in this room. She bought me some clothes, too, but I won’t wear them.

  There are some truths that you should know. #1: Everybody wants something from you. If they give you a gift, that’s because they expect something in return. I try not to ever owe anybody. That’s a go
od rule to live by. I know Mrs. H is being nice because she can’t have a baby of her own and she wants you. And that’s what we agreed to, but I’m still not going to take anything she buys for me, only stuff for you.

  Lily

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  JOELY

  Dalton brushed his palm across the wall next to the reception area. “Here. Can you paint it here?”

  Joely mentally enlarged the painting she’d done in class to fit. “Definitely. I think that’s the perfect place for it.” Dog barks and an occasional “meow” echoed down the hallway.

  “Let me see it again.” Dalton took the watercolor off of the counter and held it up against the bare wall. It was a black mare lying on straw with her newborn white-socked colt curled up beside her. “That’s beautiful. How much?”

  She shrugged. “I’ll only charge you for paint and supplies.”

  He lowered his eyebrows. “No. I insist on paying you for your work.”

  “Seriously. It would be my pleasure to paint this for you.” She heard Anna’s and Ryan’s laughter from down the hall.

  “If you won’t tell me, I’ll be forced to write you an enormous check.”

  She smiled. It would be nice to generate some income, but she suspected if Dalton didn’t have a crush on her, he wouldn’t hire her. “Like you said, this will give me exposure. Maybe people will ask you who painted your mural and you can refer them to me.”

  He handed her the watercolor. “I’m paying you. You can count on that. Now, let’s talk about why you ran out on me the other day after that killer kiss.”

  Joely shook her head. “Let’s not.”

  Just then Anna ran toward her, chased by Ryan. They had been in a back room, petting all of the animals that the vet clinic boarded overnight. Anna bumped into Joely’s leg and squeezed it. “Can we go now? I miss Daddy.”

  # # #

  “Did you ever make it to Europe?” Jake asked Joely. They sat on a shaded bench in the park while Anna pumped her legs on a nearby swing.

  Joely followed Anna with her eyes, forward and back, forward and back. “I made it to Paris. I had to cut my trip short because I was so exhausted. I thought it was the lupus acting up, but it turned out I was pregnant.”

  He turned toward her. “Sorry about that.”

  “That you got me pregnant? Don’t be. It was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  He shifted himself on the seat. “I’m glad you feel that way. But what I meant was, I’m sorry you didn’t make it to all of the art museums you wanted to see. You wanted to go to London, right?”

  She nodded. “Life doesn’t always work out the way you planned.”

  “Maybe you’ll make it there someday.”

  Still watching Anna, Joely shrugged. “I doubt it. But that’s OK.”

  “Maybe I’ll take you.”

  Her eyes darted from Anna’s smiling face to his. “Don’t do that. You make promises, you make people think you’ll give them the world, but you’re all talk.” She took a breath, gathering steam. “And don’t you dare start filling Anna’s head with all of your B.S.”

  “It’s not B.S. Maybe the three of us could go to Europe. What a great experience that would be for AJ. A family vacation.”

  She clenched her fists. “Stop it!” A mother reading a paperback on a nearby bench glanced up at her. Joely lowered her voice. “We are not a family. I don’t know what we are. For all I know, you’ll get a job somewhere far away and Anna will be lucky if she gets a card from you on her birthday.”

  “What makes you say that? I’ve been doing everything I can to prove myself to you.”

  “I say that based on your history. You proposed to me in such an elaborate way—enlisting your friends to help with a scavenger hunt of all of the special places we’d ever been, meeting me with a dozen red roses for a picnic at the lake—and then you announced at premarital counseling that you didn’t want kids!” The woman across the way looked at them again. Embarrassed at her outburst, Joely snapped her attention back toward Anna.

  Anna waved and Joely waved back, forcing herself to smile. Jake ruined everything. Even a trip to the park with her daughter was marred by bad memories.

  Joely checked her watch. She wished she hadn’t left Dalton in order to chaperone Jake and Anna. “So why should I believe that a man who never wanted kids is going to be a devoted father to his daughter?”

  He tugged on his shirt collar as if he were too hot. “I guess it’s time we got some things straight. I panicked when I heard about your mother’s debilitating illness. I worried that you wouldn’t be able to care of our children, and even worse, I feared that our children would inherit some horrible genetic condition. I decided it was better not to have kids.”

  Beads of sweat formed on her face. “News flash. All of that is true. I have lupus. I can’t always take care of Anna the way I’d like to. And there’s a chance Anna will someday develop lupus, too.”

  “I know. That’s why I’ve done some research on lupus. I understand it better now.” He took a breath and started cracking his knuckles. “I know it’s stupid. . . I had this picture in my head of what my life would look like, the life I thought I deserved.”

  “We all had a picture in our head like that.” She still carried around that image in her mind’s eye: a husband, a daughter and a son, a little house near the water. She’d long ago given up on that dream.

  “More importantly, I’m not the same person I was fifteen years ago. It’s not fair to judge our twenty-year-old self with our thirty-year-old eyes. I’m sure you have things you regret from when you were young.”

  “Fine. You were a coward in your twenties. But you were still a coward five years ago when Anna was born.”

  He nodded. “I have no excuse. I mean, I rationalized everything in my head at the time. . .I was married, I already had two kids, I didn’t know how I’d explain AJ to them. But in reality, there’s no excuse for ignoring my own baby.” His face turned toward Anna’s and his expression softened. “She is my everything now.”

  She knew exactly how he felt. Anna was the reason she got out of bed every morning and the reason she moved away from her friends so that Kate could step in when the lupus flared. She intended to give her daughter every advantage that she herself had been denied.

  An image of her mother hobbling with her walker down the hall of the foul-smelling nursing home formed in her mind. The next thing she knew, her father had died in a car crash, then a few months later, her mother lay in a casket. She’d never told anyone, but the loss of her second parent was less devastating than the first. Part of Joely had felt relieved, glad that her mother’s suffering had ended. Guilt choked her.

  Joely shook her head. She would not become her mother. She would not allow lupus to take her from Anna.

  Jake’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “I guess I knew saying I didn’t want kids would push you into a corner. Encourage you to break the engagement.” He paused. “But you hid stuff from me.”

  “What? I’ve always been honest with you.”

  “You never told me about your mother’s illness. I had to find out about it from Kate.”

  “You did not have to find out about it from Kate. You could’ve asked me.”

  “I tried. You always changed the subject.”

  “First of all, I was pretty young when she moved into the nursing home. And second of all, I didn’t know she had lupus. None of us knew what it was until a few years ago. When I was diagnosed, the doctor put it all together.”

  “You didn’t purposely gloss over how sick she was so that I would marry you?”

  Joely had never considered herself deceitful. “If that’s what you want to believe, go ahead. All I know is that I loved you. I loved you so much that I was willing to marry you despite your flaws—despite your dysfunctional family.”

  “What’s wrong with my family?”

  “Your mother doesn’t know how to show emotion, so she shops incessantly to fill
the void. And your father is so detached, he’d rather hit the golf course than meet his only grandchild!”

  Jake turned away and propped his elbow on the back of the bench. Silence formed a barrier between the two of them.

  Anna dragged her toes on the ground to stop the swing. Joely cringed, realizing Anna was wearing her good school shoes. The only pair of shoes that fit. Now mud caked on their bottoms, creeping its way up the front.

  Anna ran to Jake and hugged him. “I’m so glad you’re here. Can we go somewhere to eat? I’m hungry.”

  Joely checked her watch again. Five o’clock. Dalton had offered to fix her dinner. She’d turned him down, to be here with Anna, but the offer kept niggling in the back of her mind. “We can eat later.”

  “I’d be glad to treat you guys to dinner.”

  Joely didn’t want to spend another minute with Jake. The man felt that marrying her would’ve ruined his vision of happiness. “No thanks.”

  Anna hopped up and down. “Please, Mom. Please.”

  Jake reached out and held Anna’s hands while she kept jumping. “You know, you don’t have to baby-sit us. I can take Anna to dinner and you can go have some free time, if you’d like.”

  “Yea!” Anna jumped even higher. “We can have a date. A daddy-daughter date. Sierra said she has those every Friday with her dad.”

  A date? Joely wasn’t sure she was ready for that.

  KATE

  “I got a phone call from the credit card company today,” Mitch said. “They noticed excessive purchases and wanted to make sure the card hadn’t been stolen.”