by Lisa Dyson
Slamming his keys on the kitchen counter, the emptiness in his life stared him in the face.
He’d screwed up big-time.
* * *
ASHLEIGH HAD STRUGGLED all afternoon to keep her fear of a possible pregnancy to herself. Listening to how involved Kyle was in his nephews’ lives had been painful. An in-her-face reminder that she couldn’t give Kyle what he wanted most—children to coach, to play with, to love. Even if she were pregnant, there was only a minute possibility of a full-term pregnancy.
How would she survive another heartbreaking miscarriage?
There was so much Kyle didn’t understand about her. She couldn’t bear to have him minimize her fear of yet another pregnancy. She had to admit she was surprised when he hadn’t even been a little bit curious about whether or not she was on birth control.
A few months ago, Ashleigh had gone off birth control pills because she couldn’t tolerate some of the side effects. She hadn’t been involved with anyone and had made the conscious decision not to get serious. From the time she and Kyle were married, they’d been so intent on starting a family that they hadn’t used birth control.
Last night had been reminiscent of those days, so she’d never given protection a thought.
When he finally dropped her and the boys off at Paula’s house before heading to work, she was relieved to be free of his constant scrutiny.
“Come on, boys,” she called upstairs. They were supposed to be showering in preparation for dinner. “We need to get going. Aunt Vivian is expecting us by five.”
She went into the kitchen, poured a glass of water and studied the various pictures of her nephews Paula had displayed on the refrigerator. Some were together, some alone and some with family members or friends. All had one thing in common. They were happy. Paula was such a great mother. Her boys were well behaved and polite, but at the same time they knew how to have a good time.
Especially with their uncle Kyle. She wished she could stop picturing what it would have been like if the boys Kyle coached had been theirs. She blinked to clear her eyes.
“You guys look great,” she told Mark and Ryan a few minutes later as they walked out the front door. “Do you go to Aunt Vivian’s often?”
“Sometimes,” Mark answered. He opened the sliding door of Paula’s van and hopped in.
“Yeah, we like to see her animals,” Ryan added as he got in the other side of the van.
“You know, your mom and I used to go to her house every Sunday when we were growing up.” Ashleigh waited for the boys to buckle their seat belts then backed into the street.
“Really?” Ryan’s interest was piqued, so Ashleigh continued.
“Really,” Ashleigh repeated. “We’d spend the afternoon playing with our cousins while my grandmother—your great-grandma—would cook a huge meal and we’d gather around the long table in the dining room.”
“Why did Great-Grandma cook at Aunt Vivian’s house?” Mark asked.
“Good question.” Ashleigh chuckled. She went on to explain how the house had belonged to their great-grandparents. “When Great-Grandpa died almost ten years ago, Aunt Vivian moved into Great-Grandma’s house to help her out.”
Aunt Viv, never married and childless, was the oldest of the three sisters, and Ashleigh’s mother, Melanie, was the youngest. Aunt Lynne was the middle sister. Her three boys were a little older than Ashleigh and Paula, so the boys had been great at teaching the girls how to hit and throw a ball and how to ride the horses their grandparents used to keep on the property. Paula’s boys would have loved learning to ride, but caring for the horses became too much for Aunt Viv when her knee problems began.
Ashleigh turned onto the two-lane road that would take them to Aunt Viv’s.
“Why doesn’t Great-Grandma live there now?” Ryan asked.
How to explain Alzheimer’s to a child when it was a difficult concept for adults to grasp? “She needs some special help, so my mother, your Grandma Melanie, is moving Great-Grandma into a special hospital in Maryland.”
The drive to Aunt Viv’s took about fifteen minutes, as the ten-acre property sat on the outskirts of Grand Oaks, surrounded by farms and thickly wooded areas. As a child, Ashleigh had imagined fire-breathing dragons and handsome princes in those woods.
As an adult, she knew that even the most handsome and courageous of princes couldn’t rescue her from everything.
Aunt Viv’s chocolate labs, Harry and Isabel, came galloping toward the van to greet them when they pulled into the winding stone driveway. She pulled over to the side to park and the boys were unfastening their seat belts before the engine stopped.
Aunt Viv wasn’t far behind the dogs and she hugged each of the boys before getting to Ashleigh. Aunt Viv whisked Ashleigh away toward the house. “Now you boys know where I keep everything.” Her aunt spoke over her shoulder while directing Ashleigh to the front door of the sprawling ranch home. “There’s a surprise back near the barn,” she told them, then turned back to Ashleigh. “They’ve been here enough that I trust them to stay out of trouble.”
Aunt Viv continued marching Ashleigh across the entryway and dining room and through the swinging door that separated the dining room from the kitchen. The house looked exactly as Ashleigh remembered it.
“I adopted a rabbit from one of the neighbors who couldn’t keep it anymore,” Aunt Viv confided to Ashleigh. “The boys will love it.”
Her aunt was barely five feet tall, but she’d always possessed the spunk and vivacious personality of someone much taller and younger. Her salt-and-pepper hair was elfin short and she wore her trademark red penny loafers and white socks with navy cotton pants and a powder blue, short-sleeved top on her petite frame. If Ashleigh hadn’t known about her aunt’s recent knee replacement, her slight limp would have gone unnoticed.
“Tell me everything.” Aunt Vivian handed Ashleigh a potato peeler and a five-pound bag of potatoes before propping herself on a counter stool to get started on the fresh green beans.
“Well, I wasn’t there when Paula’s labor began—”
“Oh, my dear, I don’t want to hear about Paula,” Aunt Viv exclaimed. “I’ve already talked to her myself.”
“Then what?” Ashleigh was afraid to hear what was coming.
Aunt Viv lowered her voice to a whisper, even though no one else was in the house. “Tell me what’s going on with you and Kyle.”
She couldn’t possibly know about last night, could she?
Ashleigh decided that was only likely if Kyle had mentioned it, and she couldn’t imagine him doing so.
“There’s nothing going on with Kyle and me.” She emphasized “nothing” for the sake of both her aunt and herself. Last night had been a fluke, a moment of weakness. Even if she were pregnant, she’d deal with it alone. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much if he didn’t know.
She’d survived this far, she could do it again.
She scraped at the potato’s skin as if she wanted to hurt it. Waterworks threatened and she blinked to clear her vision, but not before Aunt Vivian noticed and misunderstood the reason.
Her aunt hopped down from her perch to put an arm around Ashleigh’s waist and squeezed. “Oh, sweetie, I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I’m fine,” Ashleigh told her, pausing midway through the potato she was peeling to look at Aunt Viv. “I’m just not feeling like myself. It has nothing to do with Kyle. We’re divorced and that’s that.”
Aunt Viv raised an eyebrow in obvious disbelief. She put a hand on Ashleigh’s shoulder. “Are you sure you’re not upset about something with Kyle?” Then she quickly added, “I’m not trying to pry. It’s just that when I talked to Paula, she thought things had gotten better between you and Kyle. A truce, maybe?”
“We’re doing all right,” Ashleigh said. “For a divorced couple.” She at
tacked the next potato.
After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, Aunt Viv said, “Did I ever tell you about Clint?”
“Clint?”
Aunt Viv walked to the oven to check on the chicken roasting there. “He was the love of my life.” Her words were quiet and simple, but the anguish in Aunt Viv’s voice was evident.
Ashleigh was afraid to ask, but she did anyway. “What happened to him?”
“He died a few years ago.” Aunt Viv’s back was to Ashleigh as she wiped up a spill on the countertop. “A blood clot travelled to his heart.”
“I’m so sorry.” Ashleigh didn’t know what else to say. She waited for Aunt Viv to continue.
“We grew up together. His parents owned a farm down the road. You know the one, with the fruit stand in the summer and Christmas trees in the winter.”
Ashleigh stopped peeling. “I remember. Walker Produce. Didn’t they go out of business several years ago?”
Aunt Viv nodded. “When Clint’s parents got too old, there was no one else to manage the farm anymore because Clint had moved away and he had no intention of moving back. So they sold the land to developers.” Aunt Viv removed a large salad from the refrigerator and set it on the counter.
“Clint didn’t want the farm?” Ashleigh asked.
“He couldn’t take care of it.” Aunt Viv’s tone became somber. “He was paralyzed from the waist down in a car accident shortly before we were supposed to get married.”
Ashleigh’s sudden intake of breath was audible. Her hand flew to cover her mouth. “That’s terrible.” She choked out, “I’m so sorry.”
She waited for Aunt Viv to continue, not wanting to push for details in case her aunt wasn’t comfortable supplying them. Ashleigh had never heard this story, couldn’t imagine why no one in her family had ever talked about Clint.
Aunt Vivian continued to tell her story while she cut up tomatoes for the salad. “We delayed our wedding while Clint recuperated.” She spoke softly and Ashleigh strained to hear. “I wanted to get married right there in the hospital, but Clint wouldn’t hear of it. I suggested it again when he was moved to a rehab facility and again he said no. He said he wanted me to have the wedding of my dreams, but he couldn’t understand that none of that mattered to me anymore.”
“You never married?” At this point, Ashleigh wasn’t sure. She’d never heard even a whisper about this part of her aunt’s life.
Aunt Viv’s head shook slowly. “No, we never married.” Her voice was wistful. “It would have been thirty-nine years next month if we had.” She paused so long, Ashleigh didn’t know if her aunt planned to continue or not. Finally she spoke in a strained voice. “By the time Clint was discharged from rehab, he’d decided he didn’t want to be a burden to me.”
Ashleigh’s eyes welled up and no words would come.
Aunt Viv continued. “No matter what I said, he wouldn’t change his mind. He refused to give in, refused to recognize that I loved him enough to change the image I had of our future together. He decided to move to Kentucky to continue his therapy and he never once contacted me after that.” She dumped the tomatoes into the salad bowl. “If I hadn’t kept in contact with his sister, I never would have known what happened to him.”
Ashleigh finally voiced the question that nagged her. “Why hasn’t anyone mentioned this until now? Surely the entire family knew.”
“I swore them all to secrecy,” Aunt Viv said. “I never wanted to be reminded of that part of my life again.”
Then Aunt Vivian walked over to Ashleigh and straightened to her full height. She grabbed Ashleigh’s upper arms and gave her a slight shake. “You need to understand how much Clint hurt me by leaving. I was crushed beyond belief. Don’t you see? He did to me what you did to Kyle.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
HOW COULD AUNT VIVIAN be so cruel as to compare what Clint had done to her with Ashleigh and Kyle’s situation? Ashleigh’s intentions had been to look out for Kyle’s best interests. Clint had only thought of himself.
Ashleigh looked Aunt Viv in the eye. “How can you say that? I did Kyle a huge favor. Once I was out of the picture, he was free to find someone else to fall in love with and start a family. Just because he hasn’t found someone yet doesn’t mean he won’t someday find that happiness.”
If she hadn’t left, then Kyle would have been miserable because they couldn’t have children. That would have made Ashleigh miserable, too. So she chose the shortest path to the end of their marriage.
“Did you ever look into adoption?” Aunt Viv’s tone softened. “I’m sure Kyle would have been open to that.”
Ashleigh had heard this suggestion multiple times, mainly from Kyle. She was sick of it. It might be the perfect solution for so many people, but she refused to consider it.
She steeled herself and took control of her emotions before speaking. “As a pediatrician, I’ve seen several adoptions. Many have been successful, but some have gone horribly wrong. One family in my practice tried private adoption three times before it finally worked out.”
Ashleigh took a breath, recalling the woman’s emotional distress as if it had happened yesterday. They’d originally met when she came in for an interview appointment to decide if Ashleigh was the right pediatrician for her new baby. “Two different birth mothers changed their minds a few weeks before their babies were born.” She took a breath before continuing. “There was another family who brought their newborn home. Right before the child turned six months, the birth father returned and the birth mother wanted the baby back.”
Aunt Viv opened her mouth to speak, but Ashleigh put a hand up to stop her. “I’ve also seen unsuccessful foreign adoptions break families in two.”
She’d witnessed firsthand the utter destruction of a childless couple when their foreign adoption of an older child fell through. This particular husband and wife had spent three years diligently doing everything right, only to lose the child when she died in an earthquake that demolished the orphanage. They were told they’d need to start the process all over again, but the stress had been so great that the couple divorced.
“That doesn’t necessarily mean you would have a bad experience, too,” her aunt scolded, her head shaking.
At that moment the boys came crashing through the front door, ending any more discussion of the matter.
Ashleigh had sustained too much pain and heartbreak with her failed pregnancies to suffer through the possibility of more with adoption. Simply talking about it made her sad.
No one had ever understood that, not even Kyle.
Especially Kyle.
* * *
ASHLEIGH AWOKE THE next morning to the alarm clock on her cell phone. She groaned, grabbed the phone from the nightstand and touched snooze. Morning came way too soon after a restless night of troubled thoughts and vivid memories.
When she’d first climbed into bed last night, she’d been surrounded by reminders of her previous night with Kyle. The way they’d lain together, spooning their naked bodies, where a single caress had been all it had taken to ignite a fire within them.
Ashleigh had spent the night turning this way and that, kicking off the covers and trying to find a position that didn’t make her feel bereft and alone. Every movement brought forth more erotic memories as she inhaled Kyle’s scent on the sheets.
And those memories led her back to reality. They hadn’t used protection and there was a definite chance that she was pregnant. She’d done the math in her head several times and it always came out the same—this was her fertile time of the month. She may have been unable to carry a baby to term, but they’d never had trouble conceiving.
Shoving the possibility of pregnancy aside, her thoughts had turned to the story Aunt Viv told of losing her long-ago love. After the boys had interrupted them to tell Ashleigh about the rabbit,
she hadn’t been able to figure out if Aunt Viv understood her stand on adoption or not.
She turned off her alarm before the snooze sounded and dragged her body out of bed. Monday mornings never bothered her, but this wasn’t her usual work morning where she stayed in her pajamas, drank coffee and answered emails until midmorning.
Today she needed to get the boys off to school before heading to the office to see patients. Although the arrangement was temporary, this version of playing house was fulfilling in a way she never thought she’d experience.
She slipped her silky robe on over her pajamas and was tying the belt as she went across the hall to wake the boys. “Hey, guys, time to get up.” They tossed, turned and moaned. She understood where they were coming from. They should have left Aunt Viv’s earlier last night, enabling the boys to wind down sooner before finally getting to bed. “What do you want for breakfast?”
They mumbled two kinds of cereal into their pillows, so she headed downstairs to make coffee and get breakfast. Pressing a hand to her abdomen, she made decaf even though she could use the caffeine.
With a cup of coffee in her hand a short while later, she went back upstairs for a quick shower and to check on the boys’ progress.
Amazingly, they all got to where they needed to be on time.
Later, over her lunch break—shortened because she’d run behind while seeing patients—she updated charts, returned phone calls and signed prescriptions. All while she nibbled at the grilled chicken wrap Cammie had ordered for her.
The afternoon went by quickly. With no time to spare, Ashleigh went to the front desk to speak to Cammie. “Would you mind calling my sister’s house to find out if my nephews made it home from school?” She gave Cammie the phone number. “Emma should be there with them.”
A few minutes later, there was a knock on the door of exam room two.
“One second.” Ashleigh looked up from examining her young patient. She held up a finger to her young patient’s mother. “Excuse me.”
Ashleigh opened the door and slipped out to see Cammie.
