The dentist’s visit took longer than she’d expected. By the time Emily was driving back to her parents’ house, her mouth partially frozen, two hours had passed. The warm wind came in through the open window, and a jangly tune played on the radio—something about a brokenhearted cowboy.
Her parents lived on a quaint little street with small, boxy houses built in the sixties. They were cute in the way Lego houses were cute, with shutters and steeply sloped roofs, a garage off the side and a mailbox out front. She could drive down this street without even thinking, and it almost felt as if the car knew the way. Pulling into her parents’ drive, she saw the little BMW parked in front of her, and her heart sank. It belonged to her cousin Steve.
“Shoot,” she muttered to herself. She parked her SUV next to it and got out, slamming the door. “What now?”
The screen door was closed, but the main door to the house was open, letting a warm breeze come inside. Emily could hear their voices before she even opened the screen, and when she did, the chitchat silenced. Stepping into the living room, she saw Sara sitting in the easy chair, Cora snuggled in her arms and Steve standing protectively over her.
Sara wore her hair pulled away from her face with a headband, a look both too young for her and also oddly appropriate. She looked more like a slender schoolgirl sitting there, except for her hands. Her hands moved with the experience of a mother, confident and accustomed to babies.
“Hi,” Emily said.
“Hello, Emily,” Sara said sweetly. “How was the dentist?”
“Oh, fine.” Emily touched her face. “A couple of cavities. How are you doing?”
“I missed her.” Sara looked up bashfully. “You’ve got to forgive me, but I had to come and get some good snuggles in.”
There was nothing wrong with coming to cuddle a baby, but something inside of Emily piqued at that. Sara looked back down at Cora lovingly, making wide-eyed faces at her.
“Such a pretty girl,” Sara cooed. “Such a pretty, pretty girl. Yes, you are.”
Steve looked over at Emily silently.
“How are you, Steve?” Emily asked, going over to collect the baby bag. It sat next to the chair, tucked behind Sara’s purse as if it were part of her things.
“Oh, leave that,” Sara said, gently swatting Emily’s hand as she went to reach. “I might need a cloth or something.”
Emily stopped for a moment, then reached past her and took the bag. Sara ignored her, her attention on the baby.
“So are you enjoying your summer off?” Steve asked brightly.
“Absolutely,” Emily replied. “One of the perks of my job.”
“But September comes up soon enough....” He looked at her levelly. “Before you know it, this summer adventure will be over and you’ll be back in the saddle.”
Emily frowned. Why did she feel like a teenager being lectured about responsibility? What she did with her career was strictly her business, in her opinion, and she resented her cousin’s meddling. “Do you have any plans for the summer?” she asked instead.
Sara looked up at Steve, and they exchanged a look.
“Not really.” Steve shrugged. “We like to keep the girls pretty close to home. Family time is precious.”
Emily glanced at her watch. She didn’t actually have any pressing appointments, but she wasn’t comfortable with this visit. The tension in the room, despite the cheery smiles, could be played with a guitar pick.
“Thanks for watching her, Mom.” Emily turned toward her mother, who stood there with a nervous expression on her face. They exchanged a baffled look.
“No problem, sweetie,” her mother said smoothly. “Anytime.”
“I’d better get going.” Emily adjusted the baby bag on her shoulder and picked up the car seat from where she’d left it by the door.
When Sara made no move to hand Cora over to Emily, her mother stepped in.
“Sara,” Emily’s mother said softly, moving toward the door as if to block an escape. “Emily is Cora’s guardian. We have to respect her wishes for Cora.”
“Cora needs time with me,” Sara replied, giving them a chilly smile. “She needs to know who I am.” She pulled the baby in closer and turned herself away from them as if to put her body between the baby and everyone else.
Emily looked up at Steve, who glanced away uncomfortably. “What is going on, exactly?”
“Sara, let’s not make a scene here,” Steve murmured.
“I’m not done yet.” Sara’s expression was near panic. “She needs to know me.”
“Why are you saying this?” Emily asked quietly. Cora began to squirm, looking around, then she opened her mouth in a thin wail.
“Shh, shh.” Sara stood up and began to bounce the baby gently in her arms.
“Thanks, Sara,” Emily said. “I’ll just take her now.”
“This is better for Cora,” Sara said, reluctantly letting Emily take the baby from her arms. “What do you think it’s going to be like for her when she comes home with us? She needs to know who I am.”
Emily fought down the anger rising up inside of her. Cora nestled cozily into her arms, happy now that she was with Emily, but Sara still stood there, her eyes full of tears and her gaze locked on the baby.
“She needs to know I’m here.”
Steve put a hand firmly on her shoulder, and Sara clamped her mouth shut.
“I’m pretty sure our lawyers would advise us to stop these emotionally charged meetings,” Emily said, her voice low. “Look, we’re family. We shouldn’t be going to court, but it is what it is. Let’s not make anything worse here today. We have three weeks till our court date. Perhaps we should just keep our distance until then.”
“That’s probably a good idea,” Steve agreed quickly. “Come, Sara, we need to go pick up the girls.”
With a lingering look at little Cora, Sara stood up and adjusted her dress primly. “Thanks for the tea, Aunt Rita. We’d better go pick up the girls. They’ll be missing us by now.”
Steve and Sara walked to the front door, hesitated a moment and then opened it.
“Thanks again.” Steve’s voice was unnaturally high, then they stepped outside and the screen banged shut behind them. Emily and her parents stood in silence until they heard the little BMW start and pull out of the drive.
“Wow.” Her mother sighed. “What was that?”
Emily just shook her head. “They seem pretty confident.”
Her mother grimaced and shook her head. “Well, they shouldn’t be counting their chickens.”
Emily’s father stood by the kitchen door, his lips pressed firmly together in a thin line. When he felt Emily’s eyes on him, he looked over at her, his expression unchanged.
“Should I be worried?” Emily asked, her energy draining out of her. She knew what she was hoping for. She wanted her father to tell her that it wasn’t as bad as it looked—that it was really just normal family tensions around a time like this. His expression, however, suggested otherwise.
“You should ask the chief of police about that,” he said. “He’d know, and I’d feel better if you talked it over with him. At least have it on record that your cousins are acting strangely.”
“That was definitely weird, right?” She looked from her mother’s stricken face back to her father.
“Downright loony,” her father said. “Call Chief Taylor.”
* * *
Greg sat in his car outside Shady Pines Nursing Home. He wasn’t ready to go in yet. He was relatively sure what he’d meet with, and he wasn’t ready for the rejection yet. A man never thought he’d live to see the day that his own mother would forget him. It hurt deep down in a place that ached like a punch in the gut. He just needed his mother to recognize him...to let him comfort her.
She’d never been the
type to let him comfort her, though. Even at his father’s funeral, his mother was stoic and composed. He remembered standing next to her, and her spine had been like steel. She didn’t bend—not once. She’d stared at the casket, deep sadness swimming in her eyes, but her face was like a granite mask. It had taken three years for her to smile again, but she’d never cried in front of him, either. His mother had been a rock, brave and immovable.
“Your dad is gone,” she’d told him gently the night that they’d buried him. “And we’ll take care of each other now. But don’t worry—you’ve got a pretty tough mama. We’ll be all right.”
That had been her motto—he had a pretty tough mama. Looking back on it now, he could see her struggle to be both mother and father to him, but at the time he’d been confused by the change in her. He could still remember the day he’d come home with a nasty black eye from a boxing class that he hadn’t been able to hide. When she’d got home from work, she’d stopped in the process of taking off her coat.
“What happened to you?” she’d demanded, bending down to look into his battered face. Her coat was still half-on.
“I fell,” he lied.
“Where?” She gingerly touched his blue-smudged cheek with her cool fingers.
“Down a big hill.” If she’d pressed further, he was relatively certain his lie would crumble around him. Instead, she gave him a long look, straight into his eyes and into his soul, if that were possible.
“That’s quite the hill,” she said softly. “I think I need to talk to your principal. Who did this to you?”
“Mom, don’t embarrass me!” His anger erupted. “Quit treating me like a baby. I said I fell!”
As she pulled herself erect, he thought for a brief moment that she might cry, but she didn’t. Instead, she calmly took off her coat, sucked in a deep breath and said, “Put some ice on that. It’ll help with the swelling.”
Whether she suspected he was spending his afternoons in a boxing ring, he never did know. He hadn’t wanted her to know, and she hadn’t pressed him after that.
Greg’s phone rang and he looked down at it, preparing to screen the call. But when he saw that it was Emily, he picked it up.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi, Greg. How are you doing?”
“All right. How about you?” He could hear the terseness in his own voice. It wasn’t intended, but he had a lot on his mind.
“I was hoping to talk to you about something....” She seemed to ignore or forgive his tone and pressed on.
“What’s up?”
“I left Cora with my parents while I went out for a little while and, well...” She paused. “...something strange happened.”
“With your parents?”
“Steve and his wife came to my parents’ house while I was gone. I don’t know how they knew Cora was there, but they found out somehow and—”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know how to explain it.” Emily sighed into the phone. “Sara didn’t want to give Cora back to me. She kept saying that Cora needed to know her.”
Greg opened his glove box and pulled out a form. This was definitely going to need to go on file as an incident. He jotted down the details as she gave them to him, telling the story of the strange meeting.
“What time was this?” he asked.
“Just now. Fifteen minutes ago.”
He looked at his watch. It was almost two in the afternoon, so he made a note.
“Do I need to worry about this?” Emily asked. “I need to know honestly.”
“I don’t know.” He sighed. “It was definitely strange behavior, and it would seem that your cousin’s wife is getting a little unstrung over all of this.”
“In her defense, she isn’t normally like this.”
“Well, stressful situations bring on uncharacteristic behavior.” He filled in the last of the form and made a mental note to have it filed once he got back to the office. “I’ve got an incident report here that I just filled out. I’ll need you to come by and sign it. It’s the first step. If anything else happens, we’ll have a trail to prove harassment if we need to.”
“I don’t want to sue my cousins.” There was a tiredness in her voice as she said the words, and he could understand where she was coming from, but she hadn’t seen all the things he’d seen, either.
“They’re already suing you, remember?” He paused, waiting for a response, but when he didn’t get one he added, “Do you want to come by and sign it?”
“I could come now.”
“I’m not at the office, actually. I’m—” He stopped. This was personal. Did he really want to share this? The old cop self-reliance welled up inside of him.
“Oh, it’s okay.” Her voice was soft. “I’ll come by when you’re in the office.”
Greg closed his eyes and pressed his lips together. Letting out a long breath, he opened his eyes again. “Emily?”
“Yes?”
“Do you feel like doing me a favor?”
“Sure. What do you need?”
* * *
When Emily drove into the Shady Pines parking lot, Greg got out of his car and waited for her to park in the space next to him.
He heard the creak of the emergency brake as she parked, and as she hopped out of the truck he was struck by how fresh she looked. Her cheeks were flushed, and her dark hair was swept back in a ponytail. She wore a mauve linen blouse that covered her modestly, showing only the barest hint of her collarbone.
“I didn’t realize your mom was here, Greg,” she said as she pulled open the backseat door and leaned in to pull out little Cora. He caught his eyes moving over the soft swell of her hips, and he pulled them back. Now was not the time to ogle.
“She’s been here for a couple of years now, but it’s been getting worse.” He shook the form in his hand. “I should get you to take a look at this report and sign it, if you could.”
“Oh, of course.” She emerged with Cora and handed him the car-seat handle in exchange for the form and pen. Pursing her lips, she scanned it, then signed the bottom. “That looks about right.”
“You’ll want to give your lawyer a copy of that.”
“Really?” She looked up uncertainly. “Wouldn’t that make things a bit ugly?”
“He doesn’t have to use it, but forewarned is forearmed.”
She nodded. “I see your point.” Taking her copy of the form, she tucked it in her purse. “So tell me about your mom.”
“Her first name is Laura, and I don’t know what time we’ll catch her in. She’s been going back farther and farther in time. The last time I was here, she thought I was a little boy still...or at least she thought she had a little boy, and I was just some threatening man as far as she was concerned.” He gave her a wan smile, and they ambled slowly toward the main doors.
“Oh, Greg.” Emily looked up at him sympathetically. “That has to hurt.”
“She was gorgeous, my mom. I mean, really stunning. I’ll have to show you a picture one of these days. So when she was young, she used to be pretty standoffish with other men. I can’t get anywhere close to her.”
Emily nodded. “What do you want me to do?”
“Just...” He paused and shrugged. “Talk to her? I don’t know. She’ll trust you.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do.” So much had changed with his mother since her diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, but some things hadn’t—like her impeccable judgment of character.
“Okay,” she said.
When they came to the main doors, Fran looked up from the nurse’s station and waved them through with a broad smile. She shot Greg one look of unabashed curiosity, but he flatly ignored it.
The inside of the nursing home was dim compared to the bright summer sunl
ight outside, and it took a few moments for his eyes to adjust. As they reached his mother’s room, Emily looked up at him questioningly.
“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” Greg asked.
“I was about to ask you the same thing.” She chuckled softly. “I’m fine, Greg.”
“No pressure.”
“I know. I want to help, if I can.”
Tapping on the door, Emily eased it open a little.
“Come in,” a wavery voice called.
As they stepped inside, Greg could see his mother sitting in her little chair by the window, her Bible open in her lap.
“Oh, hello,” his mother said uncertainly. “Can I help you?”
“Hi, I’m Emily.” She stopped in the doorway. It was a respectful gesture, and Greg was grateful for it.
“Hello. Are you from the neighborhood?”
“Yes,” Emily said. “I just thought I’d stop in and say hi.”
“Come on in and have some tea,” his mother said, giving her a smile. “Forgive me for not standing, but once I get down, in my condition it’s hard to get back up again.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Emily said, stepping inside. “I’m Emily.”
“I’m Laura. Why am I here? I don’t remember why I’m here. Is this a hospital?”
“Sort of...” Emily glanced up at Greg.
“Because of the baby?” her mother asked. “I’m due in October.” She gave a shy smile.
Greg felt a surge of sadness. She was farther back in time now, back to her pregnancy.
“I just thought I’d stop in and say hi.” Emily gave a small shrug. “Congratulations. You must be so excited about the baby.”
His Unexpected Family Page 8
