Baby's First Christmas

by Marie Ferrarella

  Marlene stood in the foyer holding her son. She looked around as if she’d never seen these surroundings before. Perhaps she hadn’t, she thought. Not in this light. It actually felt good to come home. She rarely experienced that feeling.

  She’d never experienced that feeling before, she thought after a beat. But then, she’d never been a mother before. It made a world of difference.

  Marlene looked down into the face of her sleeping son, and so many feelings hopscotched over one another within her. She’d wanted this child more than she had wanted life itself. But now, the feeling was not without a smaller, darker mate.

  She was terrified of what lay ahead.

  All the feelings of inadequacy that her father had stoked so diligently, like a fire whose embers he refused to let die, rose, flaming high, inside of her now. It had begun when Robby wouldn’t take her milk at the afternoon feeding. Or the evening one. And then again this morning. All three times, she’d resorted to the small, four-ounce bottle the nurse had provided as a substitute. And each time, she’d felt as if she’d somehow failed her son.

  She was determined not to. If she succeeded at nothing else, she was going to succeed at this.

  Sally closed the door behind them. “Lord, will you listen to that rain?” She sneezed as she took a quick survey of Marlene’s face. “Do you want to lie down? You look a little pale.”

  Sullivan shrugged slightly beneath his damp raincoat. The house appeared far too pristine to have someone standing in the foyer, dripping on the marble floor.

  “She refuses to accept that observation,” he told Sally. He had said the same thing to Marlene when he had arrived at the hospital.

  Sally was instantly protective of Marlene. “Maybe she doesn’t like criticism from a so-called uncle.” She said the last word as if it were synonymous with the plague.

  The old woman made him think of a lioness protecting her cubs. He supposed he couldn’t blame her.

  “The connection,” Sullivan told her mildly, “is on record.”

  Small, dark eyes squinted as wispy eyebrows gathered over her nose, “Not any I’d be interested in playing.”

  Marlene placed a hand on Sally’s arm. Robby was waking up and beginning to fuss. The trip home had been more exhausting than she’d anticipated. She just wasn’t up to listening to any harsh words being exchanged between Sally and Sullivan. Sally’s tongue could be as sharp as any saber.

  The environment was getting a little too hostile for him. He’d done what he had set out to do. This wasn’t the time to try to change Marlene’s mind about relinquishing custody. He would give her a few days to recuperate. He felt he owed her that much.

  “I think I had better be going.”

  Marlene glanced toward the narrow windows that framed the front door. If the rainfall kept up like this, the only way to get around would be by boat. Not to mention that the roads would become impassable because of mud slides. “You’re not planning to leave now, in this, are you?”

  He wanted to point out that he had just arrived in “this” less than five minutes ago. But before he could, the lights went out. A moment later, they flickered back to life.

  “Terrific,” Marlene moaned. She didn’t need this tonight. Not on her first night home with the baby. She had enough to handle without having to do it in the dark.

  Marlene looked around the foyer as the lights winked again. This had the definite feel of déjà vu about it. She looked at Sullivan. “Why do the lights always flicker when you’re around?”

  His grin rose of its own accord. “I was just thinking the same thing about you.”

  Sally looked from one to the other. “Is this some sort of secret code?”

  The baby’s fussing increased. He wasn’t crying, but he was about to. Marlene patted his back awkwardly and swayed slightly, hoping to soothe him. Sullivan couldn’t help thinking how natural she looked.

  “The lights flickered in the elevator just before it got stuck.” She thought she had told Sally that part. “Robby was almost born in the dark.”

  The next moment, the lights went out again. This time, they remained off. The darkened sky cast shadowed light into the house through the stained glass on either side of the door, creating an eerie, surrealistic atmosphere.

  Marlene moved a step closer to Sullivan as she looked around uncertainly. “Sullivan?”

  Back on a first name basis, he thought, amused. “Right here.”

  He was laughing at her, she thought. Even if she couldn’t quite see his face, she could hear it in his voice. She should send him on his way, storm or no storm. But she didn’t want him out in this because of her. What if he had an accident? Besides, she didn’t like the idea of being left standing in the dark with a brand-new baby. She already felt in the dark as it was.

  “I know, I can see you,” she answered tartly. “But for how long?”

  He strained to make out the numbers on his watch. It was 3:40. There would be light for perhaps another hour and a half. Then it would be pitch black. If power to the house wasn’t restored, Marlene was going to be spending her first night home with her son—his nephew—in the dark.

  “There’s less than two hours of daylight left at most.”

  Sally interrupted him. “There’s a circuit breaker on the side of the house.” She reached for the dripping umbrella she had deposited in the stand beside the door. “Here, I can show you the way.”

  Sullivan turned to look out the front window. From his vantage point, he could just make out the house farther down the hill. It was dark as well. And it shouldn’t have been.

  He shook his head, releasing the gathered curtain. “I don’t think a circuit breaker is going to do the trick this time. I think you have a full-fledged power outage on your hands.”

  The house felt cold already. Without electricity, there would be no heat, Marlene thought. The baby was going to need extra blankets to stay warm. And right now, she realized as she sniffed the ripe air, he needed something else.

  Sally was way ahead of her. “I think someone needs changing,” Sally announced. Putting the umbrella back in the stand, she took the baby from Marlene. There was a hint of a smile on her lips as she carried her new charge off to the nursery. “Come on, young sir, let’s you and I become acquainted. My name is Sally. You, in time, can call me ma’am. I don’t think that’s going to be for a while yet, but it never hurts to be forewarned of things.”

  Amen to that, Sullivan thought, glancing in Marlene’s direction.

  In the fading light Marlene looked like a waif, definitely not like a woman who had given birth forty-eight hours before.

  “Shouldn’t you be lying down?”

  “Not yet.” She looked out the window. “I really don’t think you should go home in this.”

  He was inclined to agree with her, but he had no options readily open to him. “Well, I can’t stay here.”

  She supposed she had been inhospitable. For the moment, she stopped thinking of him as someone who threatened to take her child away and saw him only as the man who had delivered her child, who had held her and calmed her. Who had kissed her and definitely uncalmed her.

  “Why not? I don’t bite.” She forced a smile to her lips and found that it was far less difficult than she would have thought. “And one good turn deserves another. I can’t have Robby’s uncle drowning or getting stuck in a mud slide. There’s plenty of room here. Besides, you can make yourself useful.”

  “How?”

  “You can help me gather the flashlights together before it gets dark. I have a feeling this is going to get worse before it gets better.”

  That could also be used to describe their situation, Sullivan mused. “How can I refuse such a tempting offer?”

  Because she felt a little unsteady on her feet, she hooked her arm through his. “You can’t. C’mon.”

  It didn’t take long. There were five flashlights in all, three of them camping lanterns.

  “Do you go camping?” Sullivan
deposited the armload of flashlights on the coffee table. She didn’t remind him of the type who liked to sleep outdoors and slap away insects.

  Marlene moved the largest lantern to the center of the table. They would need it to light the front door and the bottom of the stairs.

  “No. We have these in case of earthquakes and other whimsical acts of nature. Like tonight,” she said, turning around.

  The lantern cast warm shadows on the walls. Their silhouettes overlapped and blended into one. Marlene shifted, pretending not to notice. She turned on the second one. The silhouette disappeared with the added light.

  The wind picked up, howling as it continued to dash rain against the windows. Sullivan drew his eyes away from her and toward something that didn’t tighten his stomach in a knot.

  He walked over to the window. Not a single light anywhere in the area. “This doesn’t look like it’s about to let up for a while. The electric company is going to have its hands full.”

  Marlene ran her hands along her arms, trying to ward off the uneasy feeling. “I never liked the dark,” she murmured. “Things always seem twice as bad then.”

  “I know what you mean.” He’d lain awake at night and battled the same feeling more than once. “But it’s just your mind working overtime.”

  She smiled in response to his words. Sullivan felt himself being drawn deeper into the fabric of her life.

  The house was cold.

  They were going to need a lot of blankets, he thought. The high, vaulted ceilings created a drafty atmosphere.

  “Do you want some tea?” Marlene asked, remembering Sally’s offer. She paused. He wasn’t a man you offered tea to with a straight face. Only Sally could have pulled that off.

  “The tea’s cold by now,” he reminded her.

  She’d forgotten about that. Marlene sighed as she pushed a curtain aside to look out the window. She watched the rain come down relentlessly, as if someone had upended a huge pail of water. She pitied the men who had to work in this sort of weather—and prayed that they would hurry and restore power.

  “Not much of a homecoming for the baby,” she murmured to herself, unconsciously echoing Sally’s words.

  He stood behind her. For a fleeting moment, he felt the oddest yearning to stroke her hair. But his hand remained at his side. She wouldn’t have wanted him to touch her.

  And he wanted to touch her too much.

  “I don’t think your son was counting on hot tea. Besides, it’s who you come home to that counts, Marlene, not what.”

  Marlene turned around to look at him. Sullivan couldn’t begin to fathom the look in her eyes. It was far too complex.

  “Yes,” she said softly to herself, “I know.”

  Chapter Ten

  Marlene let the curtain drop. It swayed slightly as it slid into place against the window. Beyond it, the world was still being held captive by the storm, though it appeared to have settled in for the night.

  She turned around to look at Sullivan. Having brought in her suitcase and the flowers, he was sitting in her living room, as out of place as a steak in a vegetarian meal.

  He looked pensive, she thought, like someone sitting on the edge of an arrow, waiting to be launched through the air. She couldn’t for the life of her understand why. If anyone should feel that way, it should be her.

  Upstairs, the baby was sleeping peacefully. Sally had retired early, silently for once, succumbing to the ravages of the cold that was encroaching over her.

  For all intents and purposes, she and Sullivan might as well have been alone. It certainly felt that way.

  Almost intimately so. Marlene tried not to dwell on how romantic the atmosphere was, with only the light from the lantern pooling around them. Sullivan wasn’t a man to be romantic with. He was a man to be leery of.

  And yet, there were these…conflicting feelings that refused to leave her, coloring everything. She felt happy, energetic, yet tired and extremely vulnerable. Vulnerable because he was staying and because she wanted him to. There was no way he could leave now, not with the storm raging the way it was.

  She walked over to the sofa slowly. “This is a night that only Noah should venture out—and only if his life insurance was paid up.”

  He had been hoping it would let up, but that obviously wasn’t going to happen. It had only gotten worse since he’d arrived. Sullivan was annoyed with himself for lingering. He should have left as soon as he brought her home. “They didn’t have life insurance back then.”

  Given half a chance, he would probably argue with God. “I was just making conversation.” Feeling restless herself, she began to move about the room. “The point is, I wouldn’t want Robby’s uncle getting into an accident because he did a good deed.”

  He turned his eyes to her. Even in the dim light, they looked as blue as the Pacific during an idyllic summer morning. She moved farther away.

  Marlene cleared her throat and tried to sound friendly and unfazed. “As I said, we have plenty of room. My father always liked lots of space—I think he was trying to lose us in it.”

  There was no bitterness in her voice, he noted, only amused resignation.

  “Not that he was ever here that much to misplace us. Except for his parties.” Marlene bit her lip as she glanced up at Sullivan. “I’m talking too much.” And probably giving you ammunition to use. Wary, she moved back toward the window, feeling safer there.

  “I didn’t notice.”

  Impatient, Sullivan crossed to the window. Reaching around her, he moved aside the curtain to look out as if he needed to be convinced one last time. He was. It was as if there were no world outside the cold glass pane.

  Sullivan sighed. “I think we’ve had more rain in three days than we normally have in an entire year.”

  He’d heard on the radio this morning that this December was the wettest one on record. He could well believe it. There was only so long he could struggle against the inevitable.

  “Maybe I will take you up on that offer.”

  She looked at him, her brows drawn together quizzically. Damn, what was that scent she was wearing and why did she have to be wearing it now? It felt as if it were seeping into all his pores, stirring his imagination in directions he didn’t want it to go.

  “About staying the night,” he added.

  He was standing so close she could feel the heat of his body. It felt good, comforting. She argued with herself that it was only because the house was cold, but tiny fragments of the other evening returned to her. When the lights had begun to dim in the elevator, she had felt herself bordering on hysteria. He had been tender and kind. No matter what else happened, Marlene knew there would always be that bond, that underlying sense of gratitude she felt existing between them.

  She found herself wishing that nothing would ever strain it.

  Dreamer. Of course it’ll be strained. He wants what you want. Custody of Robby.

  She knew she should step away from him, from this blossoming feeling. She stood perfectly still, holding her breath like a small child standing in the dark, thinking that the sound of her breathing would give her presence away. She realized that she could care about this man, really care, if only he wasn’t who he was.

  But there was no getting around that. She sobered. “I’ll show you to the guest room.”

  Sullivan nodded, then thought of his father. He had promised to stop by tonight. He didn’t like to leave things hanging.

  “I need to make a phone call.”

  She wondered if there was someone in his life that he had to check in with, a fiancée, a girlfriend, some significant other who had staked a claim on him. That was something else she hadn’t thought to ask Spencer. At the time, it hadn’t seemed important.

  And it shouldn’t now. It’s none of your business, Marlene.

  She bit her lower lip to keep from asking. Instead, she indicated the telephone on the small table in the living room.

  “It’ll only be a minute,” he told her, looking awa
y. Why would someone gnawing on their lip make him want to do the same?

  Maybe because her taste seemed to still linger in the recesses of his mind.

  He wished he was leaving instead of staying.

  Sullivan raised the receiver to his ear. There was no dial tone, nothing but dead air. He tapped the telephone twice, then returned the receiver to the cradle.

  Marlene raised a brow as he turned around. “It’s dead,” he told her.

  “Will she worry?”

  Preoccupied, exasperated and trying to deny the feelings that were raising their small, demanding heads within him, he looked at her as if she had lapsed into a foreign tongue. “Who?”

  Marlene shrugged nonchalantly. “Whoever you were trying to reach.”

  He shoved his hands into his pockets, feeling out of sorts. He didn’t like being isolated this way. And he tried not to think about what the rain was doing to three ongoing developments in the county that were just in the beginning stages.

  Most of all, he tried not to think about the woman before him.

  “I was going to call my father, to tell him that I’d gotten you home and decided to stay.”

  An ironic smile twisted her lips. They had something in common beyond the baby. She would have done the same once. “A dutiful son.”

  His eyes slanted to hers, wondering if she was amusing herself at his expense. But the look on her face was guileless. “He likes being kept informed.”

  Marlene nodded, remembering. “I had one of those myself once.” He looked at her curiously. “A father who wanted to be kept abreast of every move I made,” she explained. “At least as far as the company was concerned.”

  He read between the lines. “Doesn’t sound as if you liked him very much.”

  She began to protest, then paused, thinking. Though she hated to admit it, he was right. There seemed to be no reason to deny it.

  “I loved him with all my heart. But, no, you’re right. Looking back, I really didn’t like him.” She shrugged. It was all in the past now. Robby was her future, and she was never going to allow him to feel the way she had. “My father wasn’t really a likable man, but I suppose he had his reasons.”